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The Big Picture of Business – Doing Your Best Work on Deadlines: Mobilizing the Energy for Best Business Success

We just had the first live TV musical play extravaganza on television after a 50-year hiatus. The production was The Sound of Music, starring Carrie Underwood. This TV special got a lot of attention because it was unique live, just like opening night of the Broadway show on which it was based.

Truth is that throughout the 1950’s (the Golden Age of Television), there were comparable live TV extravaganzas on the air every night of the decade.

Many of them were consistently great. They were live, in real time. They had top talent behind them. They were well rehearsed. They had the adrenaline of ‘going live,’ and they shined with luster.

Among those crown jewel TV moments were:

  • Our Town, starring Frank Sinatra, Paul Newman and Eva Marie Saint.
  • Requiem for a Heavyweight, the premiere of “Playhouse 90.” It was written by Rod Sterling and starred Jack Palance and Ed Wynn.
  • The Petrified Forest, starring Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall and Henry Fonda. In it, Bogey reprised the 1930’s Broadway hit and movie that launched his career.
  • The Ford 50th Anniversary, a two-hour musical starring Ethel Merman and Mary Martin. This was the first TV special and set the tone for thousands of others since.
  • The first Beatles appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, where the whole world was watching. The Beatles topped that by composing “All You Need is Love” while they performed it on a global telecast.

I have those any other live TV gems on DVD. I watch them to experience the magical energy of live performances.

Many of us remember writing the college theme paper the night before it was due. We recall compiling the case notes or sales projections just before the presentation meeting.

The truth is that we do some of our best work under pressure. We might think that the chaos and delays of life are always with us, but we handle them better when on tight time frames.

Before you know it, you’re on deadline again. Even though the tasks mount up, you have a knack for performing magnificently under deadline, stress and high expectations.

This is not meant to suggest putting off sequential steps and daily tasks. Learn when deadline crunch time is best to accomplish the optimum business objecftives.

I’m a big advocate of Strategic Planning and Visioning. Every company needs it but rarely conducts the process because they’re knee-deep in daily minutia.

I know from experience that planning while going through the ‘alligators’ is the most effective way to conduct the process. By seeing the daily changes resulting from the planning, companies are poised to rise above the current daily crises. I recommend that diversity audits, quality control reviews, ethics programs and other important regimen be conducted as part of Strategic Planning, rather than as stand-alone, distracting and energy diverting activities.

Those of us who grew up working on typewriters know how to master the medium. You had to get your ideas on paper correctly the first time, without typographical errors and with great clarity. The first time that I worked on a computer was when I was 40 years old. I took that typewriter mentality with me when I had to compose a brochure and do the desktop publishing graphics in the same two-hour window where I was learning how to work on a computer.

There were years where I kept the typewriter on the work station next to the computer. When I had five minutes to write a cohesive memo and fax it off to the client, I wrote it on the typewriter. Though I wrote all my books on computers, I wrote the modern technology chapters on the typewriter, to make points to myself that the readers could never have grasped.

In mounting your next strategic Planning process for your company, go back and analyze what elements from the past can be rejuvenated as your future. That’s a trademarked concept that I call Yesterdayism.

With planning and organizing, you can meet and beat most deadlines without working in a pressure cooker. Don’t work and worry yourself into exhaustion over every detail. Sometimes it makes sense to move the deadline to the 11th hour. Having too much time to get projects accomplished tends to breed procrastination.

Here are my final take-aways on the subject of doing your best work when on last-minute deadlines:

  • Learn what working style goes best with you.
  • Care about deadlines.
  • Prioritize the real deadlines, apart from the artificial or self-imposed ones.
  • Review the work that you’ve done on tight deadlines. Analyze what makes it different.
  • Know your own strengths and limitations.
  • Work on your own timetable.
  • When working with teams, determine the best compromise working tempo.
  • Get Your ‘to do lists’ in order.
  • Evaluate your progress.
  • Remove the distractions to doing your best-focused work.
  • Ready… Set… Be productive.

This article was written in one hour, just before the impending deadline.


About the Author

Hank MoorePower Stars to Light the Business Flame, by Hank Moore, encompasses a full-scope business perspective, invaluable for the corporate and small business markets. It is a compendium book, containing quotes and extrapolations into business culture, arranged in 76 business categories.

Hank’s latest book functions as a ‘PDR of business,’ a view of Big Picture strategies, methodologies and recommendations. This is a creative way of re-treading old knowledge to enable executives to master change rather than feel as they’re victims of it.

Power Stars to Light the Business Flame is now out in all three e-book formats: iTunes, Kindle, and Nook.

The Big Picture of Business – Community Relations and Cause Related Marketing Are Business Strategies, Not Sales Promotions: Determining the Right Kind of Tie-In Causes.

Business marries the community that it settles with. The community has to be given a reason to care for the business. Business owes its well-being and livelihood to its communities.

I recently stopped for lunch at a franchise restaurant. Nobody was at the register. A crew member told me to wait, then later took my order. She started selling donations to some cause, which I declined. When the regular cashier returned, I saw her peddling donation sales. People were blindly making donations, without understanding what they supported. The sales of those promotional pieces caused the line to grow out of the restaurant door. People were just buying the promotion in order to get through the line.

I support cause related marketing and have advised many corporations on setting up such programs. However, peddling sales to some ‘foundation’ that is named after your product and which supports only one cause is not appropriate. The store was littered with stickers. The process of selling the stickers made the waiting line longer. As a result, the iced tea had run out, and nobody checked it.

I went to their website, where franchise chains allege they want customer comments. I stated, “Having a foundation to support the community across the board is great. Who is to say that a sales promotion tied directly to your products is right? I say it is not, and I’m an expert on cause-related marketing. You people need to revise your service lines. Peddling the sales of stickers in a tackily littered store is inappropriate. I’m gravely concerned about this practice of badgering customers in support of some phantom charity; how this store does it is not right.”

The franchise owner later called. He talked all over me in a defensive manner. His voice was high-pressure, probably the result of sales training classes. Rather than addressing my concerns, he rifled over them and questioned my ability to assess community relations. I asked if he had ever heard of Thousand Points of Light. He said no. I explained what it was and that I was an adviser to the President of the United States in fostering the program. Still, he questioned my interest in community relations.

“We’re a franchise,” he admitted. “This was dictated to us by corporate. I’m sorry that you feel that way because we do so much good. You’re invited to attend when we present the donation.” I replied, “No, I’m not going to be a prop in your photo opportunity, for you to sell product.” I reminded him that it was customer donations that enabled the attention, not a corporate initiative for which they were taking the credit.

He was not listening. He was simply rationalizing a corporate marketing initiative. So too was the corporate person who later called to argue with me for daring to state my opinions. Sadly, people like that don’t care or even get that re-thinking their strategy is an option.

There are many wonderful ways where companies support the community:

  • Give percentages of sales to approved charities.
  • Offer certificates for product when people make legitimate donations.
  • Coupon book activities with schools.
  • Allow non-profit groups to present on their premises.
  • Advocate community causes in their advertising.
  • Sponsor noteworthy community events.
  • Recognize that executive time spent in the community is good for business.

No company can cure community problems by itself. Each company has a business stake for doing its part. To prioritize which spheres or causes to serve, business should list and examine all of the community’s problems. Relate business responses to real and perceived wants/needs of the community. Set priorities. There can never be a restraint upon creativity.

My advice to companies as they create charity tie-in, cause-related marketing and community relations activities includes:

  • Don’t say that you want customer input unless you are prepared to hear it.
  • Franchisers should not sell sure-fire promotions to build sales as part of the worth of the franchise.
  • Community support is not a one-cause (vested interest) matter.
  • If you seek customer comment, do not talk over the customer.
  • Do not keep rationalizing flawed strategies to your customers.
  • Realize that customers’ opinions matter and that they have more buying choices than just your store.
  • If you purport to have a foundation, it cannot or should not be named directly for your product.
  • Do not run your “foundation” out of a corporate marketing department.

Every community relations program has five steps:

  1. Learn what each community thinks about the company and, therefore, what information needs to be communicated to each public. Conduct focus groups. Maintain community files. Organize an ongoing feedback system.
  2. Plan how to best reach each public… which avenues will be the most expedient. Professional strategic planning counsel performs an independent audit and guides the company through the process. Get as many ideas from qualified sources as possible.
  3. Develop systems to execute the program, communicating at every step to publics. All employees should have access to the plan, with a mechanism that allows them to contribute. If others understand what the company is doing, they will be part of it.
  4. Evaluate how well each program and its messages were received. Continue fact-finding efforts, which will yield more good ideas for future projects. Document the findings. When planning, reach for feasible evaluation yardsticks.
  5. Interpret the results to management in terms that are easy to understand and support. Provide management with information that justifies their confidence.

Companies should support off-duty involvement of employees in pro-bono capacities but not take unfair credit. Volunteers are essential to community relations. Companies must show tangible evidence of supporting the community. Create a formal volunteer guild, and allow employees the latitude and creativity to contribute to the common good. Celebrate and reward their efforts.

Community relations is action-oriented and should include one or more of these forms:

  1. Creating something necessary that did not exist before.
  2. Eliminating something that poses a problem.
  3. Developing the means for self-determination.
  4. Including citizens who are in need.
  5. Sharing professional and technical expertise.
  6. Tutoring, counseling and training.
  7. Promotion of the community to outside constituencies.
  8. Moving others toward action.

Publicity and promotions should support community relations and not be the substitute or smokescreen for the process. Recognition is as desirable for the community as for the business. Good news shows progress and encourages others to participate.

The well-rounded community relations program embodies all elements: accessibility of company officials to citizens, participation by the company in business and civic activities, public service promotions, special events, plant communications materials and open houses, grassroots constituency building and good citizenry.

Never stop evaluating. Facts, values, circumstances and community composition are forever changing. The same community relations posture will not last forever. Use research and follow-up techniques to reassess the position, assure continuity and move in a forward motion.

No business can operate without affecting or being affected by its communities. Business must behave like a guest in its communities… never failing to show or return courtesies. Community acceptance for one project does not mean than the job of community relations has completed. Community relations is not ‘insurance’ that can be bought overnight. It is tied to the bottom line and must be treated accordingly…with resources and expertise to do it effectively. It is a bond of trust that, if violated, will haunt the business. If steadily built, the trust can be exponentially parlayed into successful long-term business relationships.


About the Author

Hank MoorePower Stars to Light the Business Flame, by Hank Moore, encompasses a full-scope business perspective, invaluable for the corporate and small business markets. It is a compendium book, containing quotes and extrapolations into business culture, arranged in 76 business categories.

Hank’s latest book functions as a ‘PDR of business,’ a view of Big Picture strategies, methodologies and recommendations. This is a creative way of re-treading old knowledge to enable executives to master change rather than feel as they’re victims of it.

Power Stars to Light the Business Flame is now out in all three e-book formats: iTunes, Kindle, and Nook.

The Big Picture of Business – Communications Reflect Your Strategy

The biggest problem with our business in our society, in a capsule sentence: People with one set of experiences, values, wants and perceptions make mis-targeted attempts to communicate with others in trying to get what they want and need.

Success is just in front of our faces. Yet, we often fail to see it coming. Too many companies live with their heads in the sand. Many go down into defeat because it was never on their radar to change.

One of the biggest cop-outs that businesses in denial use is the term Messaging. They say, “We’re in the right business. We only need to improve our messaging.” That’s a rationalization to avoid confronting key strategic issues.

7 Biggest Communication Obstacles:

  1. Lack of people skills, manners
  2. Wrong facts
  3. Denial-avoidance of the real issues
  4. Non-communication
  5. Saying the wrong things at the wrong times, for the wrong reasons
  6. Failure to pick up subtle clues
  7. Failure to master communication as an art

7 Levels of Communicating:

  1. Sending out messages we wish-need to communicate.
  2. Sending messages which are intended for the listener.
  3. Communicating with many people at the same time.
  4. Eliciting feedback from audiences.
  5. Two-way communication process.
  6. Adapting and improving communications with experience.
  7. Developing communications as a vital tool of business and life.

Lack of communication is symptomatic of fear, which is the biggest handicap for any company. Because of fear, productivity suffers, turnover increases and profitability drops. There are four main fears in the business environment:

  • Reprisal. This includes disciplining, termination, transfer to an undesirable position. When employees fear reprisal, more effort is spent on affixing blame to others than achieving pro-active progress.
  • Communication. Rather than risk going out on a limb, employees either don’t learn or use their communication skills. This stymies employees’ professional development and hampers company productivity.
  • Not knowing. Rather than admit areas where information is lacking, employees often cover up, disseminating erroneous data, which comes back to hurt others. The wise employee has the building of knowledge a part of their career path… sharing with others what we most recently and most effectively learn.
  • Change. Managers and employees with the most to lose are most fearful of change. Their biggest fear is the unknown. Research shows that 90% of change is good. If people knew how beneficial that change is, they would not fight it so much.

Each member of the organization should understand and covet the position they play. It is just as important how, when and why we communicate with each other:

  • Shows that the company is a seamless concept… an integrated team working for the good of customers.
  • Indicates sophistication by each representative… that every team player knows how to utilize each other for mutual benefit.
  • Reminds customers that the company is detail-focused and quality-oriented… with an eye toward continually improving.
  • Underscores how internal communications are comparable to the way we will interface with customers.

Pictures Convey Impressions, Symbolic of Corporate Culture.

One of the hottest and most accessible vehicles is the photograph. With cameras now on phones, people are snapping more pictures than ever before. Some get distributed on the internet, through social media and in direct transfer to friends.

This resurgence in photography comes after a conversion of the industry from film to digital. Photography is presently at an all-time high in terms of societal impact. The irony is that its principal corporate contributor (Eastman Kodak) fell by the wayside, a victim of changing technologies. The same fate had fallen the electronics industry, whose innovator (the Thomas Edison Electric Company) fell behind others in leading the trends and usage.

Photographs convey thoughts, ideas and experiences. Hopefully, their usages represent thoughtful communications. Organizations can see photography as a boon to their business, if utilized properly.

Every business person and company needs a website and social media presence. Photographs convey what you’re doing new. They’re indicative of the scope of your business activity.

Use photography to personify the company. Pictures draw relationships to the customers. Think of creative ways to show employees doing great work. Show customers as benefiting from the services that you offer.

Most companies would do well to devote a portion of its homepage to its charitable involvements. Show employees as being engaged in community activities. Promote and graphically portray your company’s designated cause-related marketing activities. Interface with outside communities tends to grow your stakeholder base.

Don’t just view photography as something that everyone does. Establish company ground rules for the usage of pictures. Tie activities to customer outcomes (the tenet of Customer Focused Management).

Nourish Communications Skills

It is important to generate ideas and suggestions via writing memos, E-mail messages and internal documents. Their succinctness and regularity of issue have a direct relationship to your compensation and the company’s bottom line.

Before presenting ideas to a customer or prospect, consider organizing your approach:

  • Predict reasons why someone might oppose your suggestions.
  • Seek out supporters, early-on.
  • Determine goals. Is the objective to get the idea accepted or get credit for it?
  • Understand your audience. Understand differing personality types of your audiences.
  • Think of yourselves as leaders, who are good communicators.
  • Listen as others amplify upon the idea, which shows their buy-in potential.
  • Determine as much accuracy in others’ perceptions to your ideas. Don’t fool yourself or be blind-sighted to opposition.
  • Throw out decoy ideas for others to shoot down, so they don’t attack your core message.
  • Use language that is easily understood by all. Avoid technical terms, unless you include brief definitions.
  • Don’t over-exaggerate in promises and predictions.

Other pointers in effectively communicating include:

  • Speak with authority.
  • Make the most of face-to-face meetings, rather than through artificial barriers.
  • Remember that voice inflection, eye contact and body language are more important than the words you use.
  • Charts, graphs and illustrative materials make more impact for your points.
  • Don’t assume anything. If in doubt about their understanding, ask qualifying questions. Become a better listener.
  • Sound the best on the phone that you can.
  • Use humor successfully.
  • Get feedback. Validate that audiences have heard your intended messages.
  • Attitude is everything in effective communications.

About the Author

Power Stars to Light the Business Flame, by Hank Moore, encompasses a full-scope business perspective, invaluable for the corporate and small business markets. It is a compendium book, containing quotes and extrapolations into business culture, arranged in 76 business categories.

Hank’s latest book functions as a ‘PDR of business,’ a view of Big Picture strategies, methodologies and recommendations. This is a creative way of re-treading old knowledge to enable executives to master change rather than feel as they’re victims of it.

Power Stars to Light the Business Flameis now out in all three e-book formats: iTunes, Kindle, and Nook.

The Big Picture of Business – The Statistics Tree: Understanding Figures and What They Symbolize, Relating Directly to Your Business Success

Business bases much of what it does on statistics. Most often, they’re financial numbers or sales goals. More importantly are the Big Picture statistics that affect every aspect of business growth and success. The way in which the bigger issues are interpreted has direct bearing on strategy and implementation.

Here are some of the most significant statistics that relate to your ability to do business:

Only 2% of the businesses have a plan of any kind. What many of them think is a plan include some accounting figures or sales goals. That is not a full-scope plan. Of the companies who continue to operate without a plan, 40% of them will be out of business in the next 10 years.

Only 2% of those who call themselves Consultants really are just that. That 2% includes all the doctors, lawyers, accountants and engineers… those of us who actually advise. Most so-called consultants are vendors who peddle what they have to sell, rather than what the client companies really need. The answer is for companies to utilize seasoned advisers, rather than coaches and other vendors.

Research shows that change is 90% positive and beneficial. Why, then, do many organizations fight what is in their best interest? The average person and organization changes 71% per year. The mastery of change is to benefit from it, rather than become a victim of it.

92% of all business mistakes may be attributed to poor management decisions. 85% of the time, a formal program of crisis preparedness will help the organization to avert the crisis. The average person spends 150 hours each year in looking for misplaced information and files. One learns three times more from failure than from success. Failures are the surest tracks toward future successes.

One-third of the Gross National Product is sent each year toward cleaning up mistakes, rework, make-goods, corrective action and correcting defects. Yet, only 5.1% is spent on education, which is the key to avoiding mistakes on the front end.

50% of the population reads books. 50% do not. Of all high school graduates, 37% will never read another book after formal schooling. Of all college graduates, 16% will never read another book. Thus, a declining overall level of education in our society and serious challenges faced by organizations in training the workforce. Yet, the holdings of the world’s libraries are doubling every 14 years.

Today’s work force requires three times the amount of training they now get in order to remain competitive in the future. 29% of the work force wants their boss’ job. 70% of corporate CEOs think that business is too much focused on the short-term.

The human brain has more than 300 million component parts. The human brain connects to 13 billion nerves in the body. The human body has 600 muscles. The human body has 206 bones. The average person speaks 30,000 words per day. The average person is bombarded with more than 600 messages per day. More enlightened, actively communicating people are bombarded with more than 900 messages per day.

98% of all new business starts are small businesses. 45% of small business owners are children of small business owners. 83% of all domestic companies have fewer than 20 employees. Only 7% of all companies have 100 or more employees.

The current success rate for organizational hires is 14%. If further research is put into looking at the total person and truly fitting the person to the job, then the success rate soars to 75%. That involves testing and more sophisticated hiring practices.

Retaining good employees, involving training, motivation and incentives, is yet another matter. According to research conducted by the Ethics Resource Center:

  • Employees of organizations steal 10 times more than do shoplifters.
  • Employee theft and shoplifting accounting for 15% of the retail cost of merchandise.
  • 35% of employees steal from the company.
  • 28% of those who steal think that they deserve what they take.
  • 21% of those who steal think that the boss can afford the losses.
  • 56% of employees lie to supervisors.
  • 41% of employees falsify records and reports.
  • 31% of the workforce abuses substances.

On any given day, Americans spend over $33 million buying lottery tickets. On that same day, 99 American families fall below the poverty line. 68% of Americans do not like to take chances. 5% of all Americans go to McDonald’s every day.

99% of American women think that contributing to or bettering society is important. 35% of Americans are involved in community service and charity activities. During the last 3,500 years, the world has been at peace only 8 percent of the time.

Data from the Census Bureau shows that 69% of new companies with employees survive at least two years, and that 51% survive at least five years. An independent analysis by the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that 49% of new businesses survive for five years or more. 34% of new businesses survive ten years or more, and 26% are still in business at least 15 years after being started.

Small businesses really do drive the economy. Many people believe that businesses frequently fail because there are a large number closing every year. In 2009, for example, more than 550,000 businesses were opened, and more than 660,000 closed. This occurred during a recession. However, during an economic expansion, the number of new businesses would outnumber the closures.

Many people may not realize how many small businesses there are in the country. In 2011, the Department of Commerce estimated that there were 27.5 million businesses in the United States. Only 18,000 of those businesses had more than 500 employees, and the rest were considered small businesses.

29% are still in business at the end of year 10. And the biggest drop comes in the first 5 years, when half of startups go belly up. This shows that the odds are against startups staying in business. The internet home business success rate is only 5%.

7 Primary Factors of Business Failure:

  1. Failure to value and optimize true company resources.
  2. Poor premises, policies, processes, procedures, precedents and planning.
  3. Opportunities not heeded or capitalized.
  4. The wrong people, in the wrong jobs. Under-trained employees.
  5. The wrong consultants (miscast, untrained, improperly used).
  6. Lack of articulated focus and vision. With no plan, no journey will be completed.
  7. Lack of movement means falling behind the pack and eventually losing ground.

What Could Have Reduced These High Costs:

  1. Effective policies and procedures.
  2. Setting and respecting boundaries.
  3. Realistic expectations and measurements.
  4. Training and development of people.
  5. Commitments to quality at all links in the chain.
  6. Planning.
  7. Organizational vision.

Success is just in front of our faces. Yet, we often fail to see it coming. Too many companies live with their heads in the sand. Many go down into defeat because it was never on their radar to change.


About the Author

Power Stars to Light the Business Flame, by Hank Moore, encompasses a full-scope business perspective, invaluable for the corporate and small business markets. It is a compendium book, containing quotes and extrapolations into business culture, arranged in 76 business categories.

Hank’s latest book functions as a ‘PDR of business,’ a view of Big Picture strategies, methodologies and recommendations. This is a creative way of re-treading old knowledge to enable executives to master change rather than feel as they’re victims of it.

Power Stars to Light the Business Flameis now out in all three e-book formats: iTunes, Kindle, and Nook.

The Big Picture of Business – Becoming a Legend

Are you a legend? Do you admire people who went the distance? Have you celebrated organizations that succeeded? I hope that you are and will continue to be distinctive.

This essay is to give insights into those who leave legacies. The secret to long-term success lies in mapping out the vision and building a body of work that supports it. The art with which we build our careers and our legacy is a journey that benefits many others along the way.

These are the ingredients that make a legend:

  • Significant business contributions.
  • Mature confidence and informed judgment.
  • Courage and leadership.
  • High performance standards.
  • Professional innovation.
  • Public responsibility.
  • Ethics and integrity.
  • Cultural contributions.
  • Giving to community and charity.
  • Visionary abilities.
  • Commitment to persons affected (stakeholders).

I have been blessed by receiving several Legend honors. What I remember the most are the ceremonies and the nuggets of wisdom that flowed. The commonality was the zest of giving back the honors to others.

The first was a Rising Star Award, presented to me in 1967 by Governor John Connally. That was the first time that I was called Visionary, and that experience told me to live up to the accolades later. The governor whispered to me, “Get used to wearing a tuxedo. Live up to the honor by saluting others.”

That same year (1967), I met singers Sonny and Cher, little knowing that 26 years later, I would be inducted into the Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame and that they would hand me the award. I remarked to Sonny that I often quoted his song “The Beat Goes On” as analogous to change management, and he was pleased. Cher recalled the 1971 occasion where she and I visited at a jewelry store on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, California. I remembered that we drank champagne in a pewter cup. Her quote: “There are new ways to approach familiar experiences,” and I have applied that to corporate turnarounds.

It was by being inducted into the U.S. Business Hall of Fame that I met Peter Drucker. We subsequently worked together, doing corporate retreats. You’ll note his endorsement on the back cover of my signature book, The Business Tree™.

One year, I received several awards. I got a Savvy Award, for the top three community leaders. I was a Dewar’s profile subject. I had gotten a standing ovation at the United Nations for volunteer work that was my honor to do (especially since it enabled me to work with my favorite actress, Audrey Hepburn).

Subsequently, I was judging a community stewardship awards program. I quizzed, “Why is it that the same old names keep popping up? There are great people to honor other that those of us from business, high society or other top-of-the-mind awareness. What this community needs is an awards program that people like us cannot win.”

I was then challenged to come up with such a program, the result being the Leadership in Action Awards. At the banquet, the swell of pride from the winning organizations was heartening to see. These unsung heroes were finally getting their just recognition for community work well done.

One cannot seek awards just for glorification reasons. However, recognition programs are a balanced scorecard that involves the scrutiny of the company and its leaders by credible outside sources.

Awards inspire companies of all sizes to work harder and try more creative things. Good deeds in the community are not done for the awards; they just represent good business. Receiving recognition after the fact for works that were attempted for right and noble reasons is the icing on the cake that employees need. Good people aspire to higher goals. Every business leader needs to be groomed as a community leader.

Recognition for a track record of contributions represents more than ‘tooting one’s own horn.’ It is indicative of the kind of organizations with whom you are honored to do business. The more that one is recognized and honored, the harder that one works to keep the luster and its integrity shiny. Always reframe the recognition back to the customers, as a recommitment toward serving them better and further.

Characteristics of a Legend

  • Understands that careers evolve.
  • Prepares for change, rather than becoming the victim of it.
  • Realizes there are no quick fixes in life and business.
  • Finds a blend of perception and reality, with emphasis upon substance.
  • Has grown as a person and professional… and quests for more enlightenment.
  • Has succeeded and failed… and has learned from both.
  • Was a good ‘will be,’ steadily blossoming.
  • Knows that one’s dues paying accelerates, rather than decreases.

Best Advice to Future Legends

Fascinate yourself with the things you are passionate about. Be fascinated that you can still be fascinated. Be glad for people who mentored you. Be grateful for the opportunities that you have had. Be proud of yourself and your accomplishments. Do not let the fire burn out of your soul.

There comes a point when the pieces fit. One becomes fully actualized and is able to approach their life’s Body of Work. That moment comes after years of trial and error, experiences, insights, successes and failures.

As one matures, survives, life becomes a giant reflection. We appreciate the journey because we understand it much better. We know where we’ve gone because we know the twists and turns in the road there. Nobody, including ourselves, could have predicted every curve along the way.

However, some basic tenets charted our course. To understand those tenets is to make full value out of the years ahead. The best is usually yet to come. Your output should be greater than the sum of your inputs. This is accomplished by reviewing the lessons of life, their contexts, their significance, their accountabilities, their shortcomings and their path toward charting your future.

  • Whatever measure you give will be the measure that you get back.
  • There are no free lunches in life.
  • The joy is in the journey, not in the final destination.
  • The best destinations are not pre-determined in the beginning, but they evolve out of circumstances.
  • You’ve got to give in order to get.
  • Getting and having power are not the same thing.
  • One cannot live entirely through work.
  • One doesn’t just work to live.
  • As an integrated process of life skills, career has its place.
  • A body of work doesn’t just happen. It is the culmination of a thoughtful, dedicated process, carefully strategized from some point forward.

About the Author

Power Stars to Light the Business Flame, by Hank Moore, encompasses a full-scope business perspective, invaluable for the corporate and small business markets. It is a compendium book, containing quotes and extrapolations into business culture, arranged in 76 business categories.

Hank’s latest book functions as a ‘PDR of business,’ a view of Big Picture strategies, methodologies and recommendations. This is a creative way of re-treading old knowledge to enable executives to master change rather than feel as they’re victims of it.

Power Stars to Light the Business Flameis now out in all three e-book formats: iTunes, Kindle, and Nook.