The General, The Troops And The Business

The general and his troops are well groomed to win the battle, let us review some of his strategy.

Care - Take an interest in your troop. Troops always respond more positively to the general who increases them and less favourably to the one who decreases them.

Learn - Get to know your officers, invest the time to understand the values that motivates them.

Appreciate - Find and encourage the strengths unique to each of your officers. Assume they have a winning mindset, and be open to their ideas and concerns. Respect the troops.

Contribute - Few activities add to a general's credibility like the dedication to add value to the officers around him, especially when the general is neither obligated to add value nor is he receiving direct benefit from doing it. Adding value to the troop lets them know that you have confidence in their ability to win.

Verbalize - Affirm the officers. An affirmation is a statement of truth you make firm by repetition. Affirmations enable the troop to believe in their mission. For the troop to win the battle, their vision of victory must become more real than their doubts.

Lead - Influence the officers, understand, enlarge, and empower those officers who are leading beside you.

Win - Win with the troop. When you succeed with the troop, you gain opportunities to influence even more officers.

The general has completed the cycle of inspiring the troop into success and then begins a new cycle as new officers are recruited.

Running a business is like being a general. Leadership carries a great deal of responsibility, not only for yourself, but also for your staff. Your employees' livelihoods are dependent on you and your decisions. Bad strategy can end up affecting a lot of lives. This is where being a leader takes on a new dimension. Every decision you make is an important one to those lives whether they are only ten or a hundred thousand people working for you.

Be diligent when recruiting employees by seeking out employees who suit your business style and you will find that management becomes a lot easier. Creative people rarely need to be motivated; they have an inner drive that refuses to be stopped. They refuse to be complacent. They take risk, which is ultimately what the business needs to be competent and to remain successful.

You can rely on a few key people to keep the business running and to keep you informed of events. They know you trust them, and they do their best to keep that trust intact.

Great employees equal great management and good management equals good employees. They have to work as a team or they would fall apart. It is possible for good management get by with poor staffing, and it is also possible for excellent staff to get stuck in the murk's of bad management.

The natural trend will be for the best managers to be headhunted and for the good employees to move on to better companies for higher wages. You will then be left with a flock that tolerates one another because they are all mediocre.

Save business cost and time by getting the best people you can. Sometimes this can mean choosing attitude over experience and qualifications. Learn how to tailor your method of recruitment to the personalities you are managing in the business.

Write down the vision for the business make it plain for all your employees while delegating the daily details to your managers.

Generals lead their troops; they inspire them only when it is necessary.