300

When Leonidas king of Sparta decided to try holding an army of almost 1,000,000 Persians at bay, with only 300 men what was he thinking? Although ultimately betrayed and defeated by the Persians the events at Thermopylae are generally regarded as a victory for the Spartans.
I would have to assume that he understood true leadership and had built an organization that when called upon to produce - produced!
Too often in business we come across CEO's that have a clear understanding of their "logo" and their "mission statement" and their " building lease" and their "office equipment and furniture" and yet they have no "300" to call upon when it comes to their Sales Force.
Who can they call on to bring in the sales, revenues and profits when they need to? Who will go and defeat the Persians?
The 300 men that served Leonidas were

1. better trained than any of their opponents
2. better physical condition
3. had no fear and no hidden weaknesses that would let the group down
4. a clear understanding of the mission and big picture
5. love and loyalty for their leader
6. a lean and fast moving unit

Does this describe your sales organization?

Are We Rome?

That was the title of a book I heard about earlier today. It posed the question in analyzing the final days of the Roman empire and comparing it to our times: Over extended Military, Crumbling of Society, Distrust of political leaders etc, etc, etc.
There certainly are many parallels and I would argue that history is full of such parallels.

I also heard something interesting regarding Dyslexia and entrepreneurs. Apparently a very high percentage, higher than the general population, of entrepreneurs suffer from Dyslexia. Why is that the case. Well there were a number of reasons given that were a result of their inadequacy with the written word.

• they develop better verbal skills
• they learn to delegate
• they learn to trust others to do their jobs

Napoleon was rumoured to have suffered from a mild form of dyslexia, however we all can appreciate his prowess on the field of battle. Wellington said that he was worth 40,000 men. His greatness as a general was in large part due to his being willing to delegate and trust his officers. So often in business we see CEO's who claim to be delegators but in reality they are not. Others delegate nothing and are proud of that. Then there are those who are actually shirking their own job and relabelling it "delegation".

Succeeding in business is becoming a greater challenge every day. Learning to delegate and trust your team will enable you to compete and avoid "being Rome" as it were.

If Not Now....When?

For the most part great leaders throughout history have identified themselves through certain attributes, one of the foremost of this is the ability to make decisions. Now we all make decisions every day - but usually these are relatively simple like selecting a sandwich for lunch. Needless to say the great leaders of history have had to make far weightier decisions and in the same amount of time it takes some people to choose tuna over turkey.
Maybe you don't like to be "rushed" into important decisions and therefore the solution involves thinking things over & over & over & over. Perhaps you can point to times in your life when you have "rushed" a decision and things didn't work out? But can't you also point to a time when even though you weighed everything out and thought it over you were foiled. In fact the percentage of failure to success is probably equal in both cases.
Abraham Lincoln had given General McClellan as much time to think things over as he could. Thinking things over was followed by "preparation" and "meetings" and "reviews" and who knows what else. The facts were that the Army of the Potomac was wasting valuable time doing nothing. Can you understand Lincolns frustration.....better Army, more soldiers, more supplies, more everything and rather than attack Lee one excuse after another.
In contrast General Lee though outnumbered, out supplied and with fewer men would often decide and attack so quickly (as would his main man Jackson) that the speed alone was enough to throw off the enemy.
Churchill, Julius Ceasar, Hannibal, Napoleon and even someone as recent as General Patton had the inate ability to assess and decide.
In business why has that process so often become simply to "assess" without a decision. To "think over" without finally making a move. What a waste of time and energy. Could your business run more effectively if the process of decision making was accelerated?