Strategic Discipline Blog

A quick review of Joseph Sugarman’s six success forces:

1. Always be honest
2. Cherish your failures
3. Relish your problems
4. Concentrate your powers
5. Do it differently
6. Clean Your Desk

We covered the first three so the following are the final three. 

• Concentrate Your Powers

There’s a lot been written and discovered on this subject since Joe wrote his book back in 1980. If you aren’t aware of this trend I suggest you read Now, Discover Your Strengths, by Marcus Buckingham and the latest book from Gallup by Tom Rath calledStrengthsfinder 2.0 which provides an on-line test to learn what your personal strengths are. Joe might have been ahead of his time, yet what he said was if you are good at something narrow your focus and keep doing it. Every time you narrow your focus good things happen. Tiger Woods is great at driving and not so good at getting out of the rough and sand. If he gets better at driving, what happens? He seldom gets into the rough and sand. When we concentrate our powers on what we are good at it is more rewarding and we feel energized.

• Do it Differently

Have you ever tried to copy someone’s methods? Perhaps it was an ad you saw, or a system that someone else had that worked well. How did it work for you? Well if its anything like Joe suggests it probably didn’t work nearly as well as your friend or the person you copied. Why? Because circumstances are different every time we do something. Even our own successes are difficult to duplicate because the events and timing changes. Joe’s story of attempting to duplicate a highly successful concert he had done in Michigan with a group called the American Breed [If you are old enough to remember they had a song called “Bend Me Shape Me.”] failed despite the first one he did being conducted in a blizzard. If you are attempting to copy someone Joe’s suggestion, innovate. Adapt the idea to your business, to your circumstances and you’re more likely to achieve success. If you fail, trust that if you had copied the idea exactly, chances are you would have failed as well, and probably more miserably. Innovation is the key to doing things better and differently.

• Clean Your Desk

My blog “Tuck Your Shirt In” already pontificated on the value of this idea so I won’t offer too much additional here. There are a number of reasons why clean your desk is so valuable including the freshness with which you will start every day. However if you impose this rule on your staff expect resistance. If you give in and don’t follow it expect not to get the benefits of this success factor. In fact if you really believe in the value of these Success Factors I encourage you to follow them immediately. Try this for a couple of weeks. At the end of each day clean your desk, in fact if you want to get another success factor working for you, before you leave your work don’t just clean your desk, mentally and physically prepare your top 5 priorities for the next day. If you keep the rule to three items, make one of the three items left on your desk a list of your top 5 priorities. Immediately the next day you will come to work facing a fresh start, a clean slate to begin and you’re most important tasks right in front of you to help you Concentrate Your Powers!

My next several blogs will likely be in quick succession since I leave on Thursday the 26^th for two weeks vacation. Several current and former clients of mine have generously inquired about the Flood in Cedar Rapids, Iowa where I live. We’re fine but many are not. My newest co worker Troy Simon lost his home and had the misfortune of getting a kidney stone and being rushed to the emergency room this past week. He expects to be back next week and I may ask him to blog about his story and perhaps set up a fund to help our neighbors here in Cedar Rapids. Our neighbor took pictures from the air of the flood’s impact a week ago at its height and I’m going to ask if it’s okay to allow a link to these pictures through this blog. I have some additional ideas on success factors on the E-Myth Mastery Program that I hope to share before I leave as well. Stay tuned.