Becoming Legendary Don't drown in the Quo

Successful Change Agents Get Buy-In

All of the pre-business meeting prayer groups decided to team up with one other group – made it six per group – just to get a feel for how things are going in others’ lives. And also, I think there was some fascination as to how each group was falling into prayer. Liz, Josh and I joined up with Carl, James and Jennifer and we all briefly shared how our businesses were going. Josh made some interesting comments about his Lubbock landscaping growth. We didn’t have time to get into much detail since we wanted to make sure we spent a lot of time in prayer with one another. The other group led us into prayer and it was just a basic set of prayers. It was nice to have other voices join ours but I still prefer the smaller version of us. I’m used to focusing on two other people rather than five. Still, I was a nice boy and did my part in prayer. I have to say that I love the fact that we pioneered this movement of prayer among businesspeople. It was nice to be a catalyst for something valuable.

As for the larger business gathering we had a brief announcement from Ches who shared about fire damage claims in Dallas and how his company can help with anyone who faces this sort of trouble there.  Our main speaker, Joyce, who was involved in running a short-term apartment location. I think it is interesting to have two such business people in the room doing the same sort of work. I don’t have any other heating and cooling owners in the larger group. Anyway, Joyce, who had come to the group late kind of shared what somebody else had touched on. She talked about being a change agent not only within the walls of her business but also in the larger regional market where our clients existed. She didn’t get into much about the community piece but she did focus in on how to gain consensus with the opinion leaders at our business. She said that some owners foolishly launched new initiatives without asking their leadership teams what they thought of it. She said that this could cause a lot of friction and even some pushback that we didn’t need. If we could get the leadership on board first then it would much easier to introduce new ideas that would funnel down smoothly. She said that as leaders we needed to “take the temperature” of our overall staff too. If we gave them chances to do some initial allowance for re-invervention of the seminal idea, we would have a good chance for change to take effect with little to no frustrations coming from employees. I am glad she talked to us about this subject because I know that I don’t ask for much help from my leaders or my group of workers. I pretty much just go with own ideas and place them into affect without getting feedback from my people. I need to do that from now on. I actually have some changes that I am about to introduce into how we work togtether and I will use this talk to spur me on to include others into my decisions.

So readers, how do you bring change into your business organizations? Are you open to the ideas of others who work for you? I am interested in how you allow for re-intervention. Thanks for commenting every week. Your tips and advice are very important to me.

Getting it all back!

We all have possessions that we would never want damaged or lost. Most of us have houses that we have worked hard to maintain and even build up and inside of that house we place all sorts of things that we consider beautiful and/or practical. But some times bad things happen to our houses and our things. A fire for instance can happen and destroy some or all of what we have worked so hard to gain. Hopefully this example “fire” wouldn’t cause any human loss or injury, but loss of housing or possessions can make us feel like we have had the rug pulled out from us. One day we have a lovely home filled with lovely things and the next a fire hits and we are standing in the midst of destruction. What should we do at this point? What can we do to make this situation better? How can we regain some normalcy?

Most of us hopefully can make fire damage insurance claims to get the ball rolling on recovering our things. But this process can be a difficult one. Insurance companies can make it difficult to get a settlement that will allow you to get everything back in its right place. It can be frustrating to get fire damage claim help. Thankfully there are professionals known as Public Adjusters that you can hire to stand between you and the insurance company so that a higher settlement can be attained. If you find yourself facing an insurance claim, I would definitely recommend you checking out these professionals before you try to go at it alone. I’m writing this suggestion to you because up until a fire ravaged my in-laws house, I had no idea that there were people who could help them with their insurance claim. I had no idea what a Public Adjuster was – I quickly learned though and was blown away by their effectiveness.

I hope that my recommendation helps you if you ever have really any sort of damage done to your home or business that requires an insurance claim. I hope you never have to use a Public Adjuster and that your life goes without destruction of any sort. But if you do run into trouble with fires, water damage, mold, smoke damage, etc., keep Public Adjusters in mind. They will get you back on your feet.

The Nicest Yard on the Block

Everyone I know is fairly competitive about a lot of things – who has the coolest car (minivans never win, no matter what), who has the best job, who gets to wear the most casual clothes to work, who has been on the best vacation, who has the best Christmas lights, etc. It’s a funny little game that we humans play mostly with our neighbors. We especially tend to get competitive when it comes to who has the best landscaping. Everyone wants to have the nicest yard on the block with the best landscape design. Nobody wants big yellow patches in their lawn or uncreative landscaping. Makes sense to me – your front yard is the external representation of what you probably have inside of your house. Who wants to scream to everyone around “We don’t care about showcasing our home. We are derelict in our duties and even though we dirty gutters, a million leaves in the yard and dandelions popping up everywhere, we are happy.”

I live in Lubbock and so I know that Lubbock landscaping and Lubbock lawn care is a big deal. I also know that some of the richer folks spend upwards of $20,000 on their landscaping to make sure they have the best yard in their area. Now, I am not recommending this crazy amount of money be spent on plants, trees and yard work. But I do recommend that you find a lawn care crew that is not only affordable but that is also known for their killer professionalism and creative abilities to give you an advantage over your competitive neighbors. Some people try to do it all on their own – mowing, edging, designing, gardening, etc. And great for them if they want to risk looking bad. But I don’t think this is the right road to take – I would hire a great crew with amazing testimonials about their work and let them do all of that stuff for me.

One company in Lubbock that matches all of my needs for year-round lawn care is called Lubbock Roots Lawn and Landscape (http://lubbockroots.com). I know their boss and he is a stickler for doing the best work for a fair price. And his workers do everything just right. I might be spending less on my yard than my neighbors do, but no one would ever guess it. I recommend this company above all others. Feel free to comment and tell me who you think is the best in town. All I know is that I have the best yard on the block because of this group.

With that, I bid you adieu. Happy weed-pulling!

How to help your business grow from within

Every business has its strengths and flaws and it is the job of the leadership to minimize the flaws and increase the strengths. One of the most crucial things a company to help it grow from within is to empower the employees and especially the managers by giving them the chance to learn from a specialist from outside of the company – someone who can come in to the business to consult or someone to speak into their work lives via corporate workshops or leadership coaching. We all want our managers to get a fresh voice and to be inspired by that voice so that they not only keep up their lifelong learning but so they can learn to lead better.

There are lots of leadership training conferences that bring in some of the greatest speakers and workshop leaders for the sake of leadership teams and members of management. I’ve been to several of these and I always leave with an excitement about improving my leadership and my work style. So, I recommend if you are the leader of a company that you look into an consultant, regional workshops and/or conferences with stellar speakers – people who have done business right for a long time and who have fresh perspectives to offer. And if you decide to go this route so that your leaders can learn to lead better, I want to recommend that you look for one speaker and leadership coach in particular who tends to increase those strengths I wrote about earlier. This man is named Dr. Andy Neillie and he has a knack for touching on vital issues while keeping it real. He uses everyday examples so that his talks resonate with everyone. You can read more about him at his website (http://neillieleadershipgroup.com) or you can contact his office directly at 512-963-8886.

If you can’t find him speaking anywhere close to you, you can still grow your business from within by going to other peoples’ workshops and conferences. Having those outside voices speaking into the lives of your employees is invaluable.