In 1995 my wife, Suzanne and I experienced something for the first time: our first child birth. First in a long list of “firsts” in our first year of marriage. We were admitted into the hospital early that evening where the doctors said, “You’ve started, but you’re not ready.” The long night that followed consisted of periods of calm interrupted by incredible pain for my wife. ...
Steven Spielberg dropped out of high school in his sophomore year. He was persuaded to come back and placed in a class for the learning disabled. He lasted a month and dropped out of school forever. When Thomas Edison was a boy his teacher told him he was too stupid to learn anything. Albert Einstein was four years old before he could speak. A newspaper editor fired Walt Disney because he had “no good ideas.” Winston Churchill failed the 6th...
“You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have charge of.” ~Jim Rohn A while back I had breakfast with a remarkably successful business owner who was producing well over seven figures. His company employs over 275 people in an intense outdoor work environment. During these trying labor shortage times where we are seeing the great resignation, employees leaving a company...
“Yeah, but that’s not my zone, that’s their zone.” How do you overcome a wrong mindset that creates silos and excuses within your team? Most facilities and large properties need a simple and efficient way to manage their work flow. One simple way to accomplish this is to divide a large area into smaller areas of responsibility. In developing these smaller areas, aka zones, it allows for better attention to detail within the individual areas and...
Most of us don’t try to irritate the boss, we see no real positive gain in such. If your boss has empowered you to make decisions and act on their behalf, then my assumption is you probably are capable and have the power to answer questions that come up. As a leader, you are looking for people whom you can develop and hand off more responsibility to. Leaders need their people to think through problems, respond...
How does a professional turf expert stop weeds from growing in their turf-lawn? How do amazing companies stop negative employees from influencing the company culture? There are a lot of similarities. Let’s explore this a little further. To stop weeds from growing on a high-performance field or fairway, the turf is treated with a pre-emergent weed control product at critical times of the year. The pre-emergent’s job is to stop weeds from ever starting to grow in...
With so many companies experiencing growth opportunities, one of the biggest challenges facing our service industry is finding people to work. The demand for quality work has not and will never decrease. Quality is important and always will be. Some businesses have dealt with the labor shortage by decreasing the number of customers they will service or purging out their low margin - high upkeep customers. Others are ramping up employee pay and seeking new employees. The...
There is no more noble occupation in the world than to assist another human being — to help another succeed. ~Alan Loy McGinnis It is the end of the Christmas season, New Year's Eve is upon us and giving/getting gifts is still a big part of the culture. Did you give your team anything? Without knowing your team, I hope you did, but I don’t necessarily mean a material gift, although I am sure that would have been nice. What...
"God loves each of us as if there were only one of us." ~ Augustine Friends, as we pause this time of year to reflect, rest and be with loved ones during the Christmas season, I want to share with you my gratitude for each of you and for our time together. I have had the opportunity to speak with many of you; I've opened your conferences and coached some amazing leaders. What you have given me is a...
In the early days of my management career, I remember a scheduled manager training session on weeding. It was the good ol’ get on your knees, bend over and clean out the bed without damaging the plants exercise. Back in the old days, it was not uncommon to assign a new person the task of weeding to see if he/she had what it took to make it on the team. Not long into this unpleasant task,...
