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COMPETITIVE VALUES ---
THE KEY TO BECOMING RICH
Everyone has good ideas and important things to do. Unfortunately, people usually put off acting on their ideas or diving into important projects because it requires a lot of mental and physical exertion to get started. "I'll get to it later, maybe tomorrow, after I take care of a few details on my desk right now," is a typical approach. But that's a killer. Instead, that situation must be reversed. Good ideas and important projects must be acted on right now. ...Instantly! This turns a person into a doer.
Insta-Act is what separates those who succeed from those who stagnate and remain unfulfilled.
The majority of people, for most of their working lives, do not exert independent, hard thinking. They merely show up at work to perform tasks that someone else has devised and set up. Harvey Firestone, founder of the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, stated, "There is no limit to the extent a person will go to avoid hard thinking."
A person must identify his or her tendency to avoid hard thinking and then turn that situation around. Instead of avoiding hard thinking, one must aggressively dive into hard thinking whenever and wherever he or she sees the opportunity. At first, one's efforts can easily be sabotaged. After just a few minutes of hard thinking, one's mind will have a tendency to become unfocused and then to start buzzing out. But, by being aware of the Buzz-Out Syndrome, a person can turn that situation around. As soon as one feels his mind starting to buzz-out, he can stop, re-focus his concentration, and then push forward with gusto! That will knock buzz-out from one's brain!
Identifying the Buzz-Out Syndrome and then knocking it out of your brain actually becomes exciting once you realize what is happening. As soon as you begin to feel a buzz-out sensation, you must recognize how that mental buzzing out is what holds almost everyone down and stagnates them. Buzz-out is a monster that keeps people from achieving great wealth and happiness in life. Ironically, once a person identifies this, it becomes easy to defeat that buzz-out monster.
A person can actually feel himself burning away buzz-out -- similar to the way a person exercising can "feel" himself burning away fat cells. The more it "hurts" when exercising, the more motivated a person can feel as he knows he is burning away ugly fat cells. Likewise, when a person's mind starts to buzz out, he can re-group and then push forward ever more intensely as he "feels" himself burning away buzz-out from his brain. With practice, a person's concentration and thinking capacity will increase several-fold. Such a person becomes a powerhouse.
Managers can have a false belief that they do not need to really dig in to learn and perform the most basic, nitty-gritty detail work within their companies. An arrogant attitude can develop that one does not have to stoop that low. But, such an attitude underlies the white-collar hoax. (See Mark Hamilton's book Neo-Tech Business Control for a complete discussion of the white-collar hoax.) Moreover, such an attitude stagnates a manager. Getting down and dirty by learning and doing the most basic, nitty-gritty work within a company is crucial for building real, earned power.
The majority of people report to work and perform preset, already-mapped-out tasks. These tasks were devised and implemented by someone else. Few individuals ever really exert their own independent thought and effort to figure out how to move forward the money-making essence of their company.
Yet, the only way to really achieve success is to break out of a following mode at work and into independent thinking and action -- i.e., move into new territory that no one else has mapped out or formatted. By breaking out of a following mode at work, a person must decide on his own what actions he needs to take. He must figure out how to move forward the money-making essence of his company.
A person normally starts off in a following mode at work, but as he builds knowledge and experience he can and should start to formulate his own independent thoughts and actions that increase a company's efficiency or build onto its money-making, value-producing essence.
A person will know when he is pushing into an independent, integrated-thinking mode because there will not be anyone else around who can tell him what to do.[ 2 ] Only his own thinking and effort can guide him. It is at this stage that a person can really begin to move forward. Ironically, moving into such an independent, forward-essence mode makes a person feel uncomfortable at first.[ 3 ] But, this is a key sign that one is finally breaking out of a following mode. For, after a lifetime of always knowing exactly what to do in a following mode at work, not knowing what to do or who to turn to in an independent, forward-essence mode makes a person feel awkward -- even like he or she is goofing off or taking liberties on company time.
Such feelings occur precisely because a person is breaking out of a following mode and into an independent, forward-essence mode. Such a person will feel apprehensive because there is no one around who can show him what to do or how to act. No previous format has been designed for him to follow. Instead, he must formulate, through his own independent thinking, the actions he must take to move forward.
When Eric Savage first broke into an independent, forward-essence mode at work, this led to his taking a trip to Europe to pursue overseas business. (See Eric Savage's book, How to Build a Global Business Empire.) At first Eric felt a little guilty. "Gee, here I am flying off to Europe on company time and expense." Eric felt like he was getting away with something. In fact, Eric would have felt more comfortable if he were back in his office and ordered to sweep out a storage closet. But, by going off to Europe, Eric was completely on his own. No one and no pre-set format could instruct him what to do. He had to think and act independently. Eric had to figure out himself, through his own integrated thinking, how to pursue forward-essence movement for his company.
A similar phenomenon happened when Eric first began exerting independent thinking to move forward into product development. Eric replicated responsibilities in his inter-national marketing area to another capable manager. This freed up time for Eric to work on product development. Once again, Eric felt awkward. He felt like he was getting away with something, maybe even goofing off a little. For, after a lifetime of working within a tightly regimented schedule, Eric was now driving off to the library in the middle of the day to do research. Eric felt like he should be in his office diligently performing pre-set tasks.
Ironically, while Eric at first felt a little guilty about his trips to Europe and about his delegating work responsibilities so that he could go off to research new products, those very actions forced Eric into an independent, forward-essence mode. Once on his own, Eric had to devise new, money-making actions for his company. And, sure enough, Eric's trips to Europe and his working on product development became the very things that pushed both Eric and his company into new, lucrative profits.
When a person first breaks out of a following mode at work, he or she will feel apprehensive. But, these are the very dynamics that force a person to think and act on his or her own. And that is the only way to break into new, forward-essence movement. An analogy can be made to a person who has been confined in a prison for many years. As a prisoner, that person had no real independent decisions to make about what he was going to do each day. Thus, when that prisoner is finally released, he feels awkward, even guilty about his new found freedom. He thinks something like, "Gee, am I really allowed to do anything I want?" All of a sudden there is no rigid, pre-set schedule telling him what he can and cannot do.
A similar phenomenon happens to workers. Most have been in a rigidly structured following mode all of their working lives. If and when they break out into an indepen-dent, forward-essence mode, they may feel apprehensive, even guilty, about their new found freedom. Yet, those independent actions are the very things that will push a person and his company forward into new realms of growth.
This phenomenon can be observed in other areas, too. For example, a television show documented one of the highest paid fiction writers today. She goes off into the countryside each morning to write novels on her lap-top computer. To an outsider, it appears that this lady has a really kick-back, lackadaisical job. But, she is earning more money than almost any other person alive. Indeed, this writer is not "kicking back." What she is actually doing is breaking out of a following mode in her career and into an independent, forward-essence mode. There is no one around in the countryside to tell her what to do or what to work on next. No rules or pre-set formats devised by somebody else exist for that writer to follow. Out there in the country, with her lap-top computer at her side, she must exert her own independent thinking to figure out what to do, what to write, what to produce. That is the reason why she is so successful.
When a person breaks out of a following mode, he or she can succeed in a big way. But, this is hard to do. Most people are afraid to exert independent thought and action.
A final clarification needs to be made at this point. Before a person can push out into an independent mode at work, he or she must first put in the hard, nitty-gritty effort to learn the details of his or her business. A person cannot just waltz into a company and expect to fly off to Europe, or to go to a library to work on product development, or to drive out into the countryside to write novels without first putting in the tough, nitty-gritty sweat work to learn and master the details and essence of that company. Only then can a person successfully break out of a following mode and into an independent, forward-essence mode.
The importance of scrutinizing costs to make sure that they are not too high, to make sure that they are justified, cannot be overstated. Exerting constant cost vigilance can ensure the success of a company. In contrast, a lack of cost vigilance can eventually doom a company. A manager must always scrutinize costs and question any increased or new expense to make sure it is justifiable. Such cost discipline will keep expenses contained. The lack of cost discipline, on the other hand, will allow expenses to eventually spiral out of control. Exerting constant cost discipline will keep a company in red-to-black dynamics and insure its future success. (Chapter XI discusses the red-to-black concept.)
But, Neo-Tech's manager stuck to his guns and insisted on delving into the proposed price increase and reviewing each specific cost -- emphasizing again that these were times of low inflation and a recessionary economy. During the process of reviewing specific costs, Neo-Tech's manager brought up how the price of paper had fallen slightly during the recession and how freight prices had not increased during the recession. Thus, the printer was unable to justify his price increase. In addition, by digging into cost details with that printer, Neo-Tech's manager learned that if he used a slightly lighter weight paper to print on, and if Neo-Tech Publishing increased its print order by a few thousand books, $13,000 could be saved on the overall per-book cost. Thus, by exerting cost discipline to not let an arbitrary price increase go unchallenged, Neo-Tech's manager spent a total of 20 minutes (10 minutes clarifying his thoughts and making notes, and 10 minutes on the telephone with the printer reviewing costs), thereby saving Neo-Tech Publishing $13,000.
That example demonstrates how cost discipline is one of the most highly leveraged activities in business. Few other activities can make or save as much money in such a short amount of time.
That is why it is important to promote integrated thinking in employees. Simply by being aware of integrated thinking and then working to promote integrated thinking in employees, an entrepreneur will sooner or later find himself surrounded by forward-essence movers. And that is the way to build major momentum within a company. Forward-essence-moving personnel are the most highly leveraged assets a business can have. They multiply a business' power many times over.
The beauty of bringing into a company integrated-thinking, forward-essence movers is that a freight-train-like momentum begins building. And all workers, including the founding entrepreneur, must begin answering to that momen-tum. Thus, everyone's intensity level and responsibility level is pushed up. For example, if a person is in charge of getting a job completed within a certain time, he or she can no longer come back and say, "I didn't complete this job because such and such happened which prevented me from finishing on time." If not getting a specific job completed on time is going to hold up another worker's job, which in turn will hold up the job of still another worker, which in turn holds up the entire company, excuses become unacceptable.
Consequently, great pressure builds on everyone within a company to become dynamic and to get things done, no excuses. The alternative is to risk derailing everyone else. Under such circumstances, individuals become enormously dynamic.
Being aware of how one dresses in business is even more important. Business evolves toward rationality. That is why the business suit has evolved. For, the business suit reflects awareness, care, and efficiency. A person wearing a business suit will find that others take him much more seriously. A business suit can increases a person's power and effectiveness considerably.
Likewise, any properly run business does not try to get away with paying employees as little as possible. The opposite is true. The goal of any forward-moving business is to have its employees make as much money as possible. Every dollar an employee earns means that that employee has profited his company several more dollars in return. Thus, if an employee makes a lot of money, it means his or her company is making even more money. That is the beauty of business!
The only exception to acting upon items immediately is when a person has an efficient system where similar items are filed into groups to be acted upon all at once during a specific, pre-set time period. For example, a phone call that needs to be made can be placed in a specific phone-call period. Similarly, a letter that needs to be written can be placed in a specific letter-writing period. A meeting that needs to be held can be placed in a specific meeting period, and so on.
The bottom line is that all items that cross a person's desk should be handled right then and there. Items should not cross one's desk twice. Items should never be put away into some to-do file to be acted upon at a nebulous future time.
In business, a person acting on mysticism stands out because problems keep arising around that person. For example, a certain employee will be working in an area and everything will run just fine. That employee will get his or her job done with out any problems. Then, when that employee leaves or is transferred, a new person is brought into that exact same job. Suddenly, that new person kicks up all kinds of problems. He or she complains and protests about various procedures and responsibilities. In addition, all kinds of problems begin arising between that person and other workers, managers, even customers.
That is a red flag of mysticism. Such a worker is creating problems where none exist. He or she is a mystical interloper and should be removed. Mysticism (creating problems where none exist) does not mix with business (solving problems where they do exist). Mysticism will poison a business and its personnel. Mysticism must be relentlessly removed like a cancer.
Consider the following example: Eric Savage had gone overseas for three months on business. When he returned to his office, he found management and employees had let their intensity slip. Projects were taking too long to complete. Split responsibilities had developed -- i.e., two or more people were handling the same responsibilities. No real effort was being exerted to move forward and generate new business. Everyone was just performing routine, already-established business.
So, Eric began making changes in personnel and the company structure to assure long-term survival and growth. He reorganized management so that managers were forced to go out and build new business, not just sit back and lackadaisically take care of business already established. Eric increased worker efficiency.
As a result, Eric ran into a barrage of huffiness, from hourly workers to top managers alike. It was the same kind of huffiness one sees every day in business. But, it was so concentrated and so much all at once that Eric was forced to confront that company-wide huffiness and eliminate it. Otherwise, Neo-Tech Publishing would stagnate and decline.
The concentrated dose of huffiness Eric encountered forced him to break huffiness down to its root cause. What became obvious to Eric as he attempted to shape up his business and get it back on track, i.e., moving forward, was that huffiness in business always traces back to mental laziness against change, efficiency, and growth. Huffiness is a person's resistance against exerting integrated effort to move forward and create new and increasing values. Such huffiness is a natural tendency in anyone not integrated with a company's forward-moving essence. So, Eric had to reintegrate workers with Neo-Tech Publishing's value-producing essence. What Eric found was that workers who were not exerting forward-essence movement got huffy whenever their jobs were reorganized in order to make them exert forward-essence movement. (See Chapter V for a more complete discussion of forward-essence movement.) Of course, doing forward-essence movement is the lifeblood of a company and is crucial to its long-term survival.
Eric also discovered that workers who naturally exert a lot of physical energy, workers who naturally hustle, very rarely become huffy. They accept change without complaints. Those high-energy individuals focus on pursuing their new responsibilities. In contrast, workers who do not hustle, who work at low intensity, almost always get huffy when forced to become more efficient and pursue forward-essence movement. Those low-intensity workers throw up a wall of huffiness against change, against efficiency, against forward movement. A manager must confront and overcome such huffiness.
If a person is not moving forward on his value-producing essence, then that person is moving towards death. In contrast, a person who is moving forward on his productive essence experiences life at its fullest. Such a person is rewarded with growing competence, achievement, self-esteem, and happiness.
A person who recognizes this fact and treats a business, no matter how large, with the same fairness he would another individual is acting in accord with reality. By struggling to be fair to business an individual will be well rewarded in the long run. For, opportunities in business naturally flow towards those who treat business fairly. In contrast, those who seek unearned power, self-esteem boasts, or monetary gains by unfairly attacking a business cut off their future. Opportunity naturally closes off to those who seek to take advantage of others.
A person must guard against accepting criticisms so often promoted by people against business out of envy or greed. Business is the act of value creation. Business is the source from which all life-supporting values and opportunity spring. Those who seek short-term psychological or monetary advantages by unfairly criticizing or attacking a business eventually cut themselves off from real, future opportunity in the most important area of life. In contrast, the person who always strives to be fair to business, to always be a value to business, will increasingly have life's most important opportunities turned his or her way. Business dynamics naturally seek out those who are fair and strive to make themselves a value.
Most people do not explicitly understand the nature of business -- including many top business executives. Business is the mechanism for the individual to develop unlimited potential. Business is what allows a person to integrate his life with productive work and consequently evolve into a tremendously powerful, forward-moving individual capable of delivering major values to society.
To accomplish that list of class-act items, employees must realize how even the most minor requests from management need rapid action. That is the only way to complete all of the items on a company's class-act list. Follow-through is a key. A company's momentum can be broken by a single person not following through immediately on even a minor verbal request from management. The need for quick responses to requests from management must be explained to employees in no uncertain terms.
In order to get such cooperation from employees, it must be explained to all workers how the managers above them, by the nature of their positions, are working off wider integrations than they are. That is why immediate follow-through on even the most minor request is important. For, having every request completed is crucial to the wider, forward-moving integrations of management. If managers and workers can do that, then in two months or less, almost any business can be transformed into a first-rate, class-act operation. That rise into a class-act operation will propel forward everyone within that company. New vistas of opportunity will open up for that company and its employees.
The problem is that a lot of people in business attempt to remember marketing and accounting numbers. Instead, they should integrate with the story that those numbers are revealing. A person who attempts to memorize numbers won't be able to continue moving forward to increasingly higher levels of integration. An analogy can be made to upper math -- a person can't get away with merely memorizing numbers in upper math; he or she must integrate with the mathematical processes in order to understand what is going on.
Integration means understanding and digesting a process, not memorizing specific facts and figures. By integrating business numbers, in contrast to memorizing those numbers, a person will not reach a mental limit. Each new level of knowledge can be integrated with previous levels of knowledge. Forward movement can continue indefinitely.
By being aware of power and working to upgrade it, others will perceive a person and his or her company as a class act. Thus, a manager should hold meetings with all employees and constantly remind them not to throw away their power. Just by being aware of power -- exhibiting a serious, concerned manner -- a person can immediately enhance his own power and his company's power. This is especially true over the telephone where clients may never see the person or the company with whom they are dealing. An individual should always act with class while on the phone. Be formal. This gives a person and his company instant respect. No more effort is required than just being conscientious about upgrading one's power.
An additional point concerning power is the need to get rid of personnel with bad attitudes. Such workers destroy a company's power with their bad attitudes. They infect, sour, and prevent other employees from acting with class. Instead of enhancing their own power and their company's power, such bad apples decrease everyone's power.
Eric Savage discovered that he could replace many managers in his company with secretaries and that the secretaries would get more work done. Thus, Eric devised an important tool for maintaining efficiency while keeping out the white-collar hoax in management. (See Mark Hamilton's Neo-Tech Business Control for a complete discussion of the white-collar hoax.) That tool is The Secretary Test -- i.e., to be hired as a manager, an executive must be more productive than a secretary would be in that same position. Similarly, The Secretary Test can be used to evaluate current managers to see if they are exerting integrated thinking and forward-essence movement. Ask oneself if a secretary would get more work done in a specific position than a current high-paid, haughty manager. If the answer is yes, replace that manager with either a hustling secretary or a forward-essence-moving manager.
Only by exerting integrated thinking and forward-essence movement can a manager outcompete an efficient, high-paced secretary. For, an efficient secretary, who by the nature of her work lacks a haughty attitude or a "that work is not my responsibility" attitude, can often complete actions and paperwork within a single hour that will take a white-collar-hoax manager all day to complete. Many companies would become much more productive simply by replacing a good chunk of their managers with efficient, high-paced secretaries.
A manager should continuously remind employees about the importance of working with intensity. From janitors to the highest executives, the productive effect of increasing one's intensity cannot be overstated. An individual who works at high intensity can increase his or her productivity not just incrementally, but can increase his or her productivity by two-fold, five-fold, even ten-fold.
Increasing intensity is simply a matter of being aware of intensity and then working to increase it -- both physically and mentally. A short story written over 50 years ago titled Calumet K portrayed the power of intensity. In that story, a grain elevator had to be built in record time or else the wheat market would be cornered by speculators. Many commodity-dependent businesses would go bankrupt as a result. Yet, the workers at this grain elevator site were behind schedule. They were slogging around without intensity. Then, an ace manager was brought to that construction site. His name was Charlie Bannon. Bannon worked with enormous personal intensity. And he integrated his workers with the need for intensity as well. Within one week, everyone at that construction site no longer walked. They simply ran to wherever they needed to go. As a result of the great intensity exerted by Charlie Bannon and his workers, the Calumet K grain elevator was built in record time. Speculators failed to corner the wheat market.
The Calumet K story exemplified the power of intensity in the workplace. Without any other variable other than being aware of intensity and determining to exert high intensity, an individual, as well as an entire company, can turn into an unstoppable dynamo.
When studying the history of America's greatest entrepreneurs, in most cases each great entrepreneur got extremely excited about an idea or an invention, only to have it fail the first time out into the marketplace. But, in each such case, the entrepreneur studied that situation to learn what caused the failure, corrected mistakes, and then pushed forward. In fact, an underlying trait of all successful entrepreneurs is that they achieved success via learning from their mistakes. They did not achieve success via an initial "great idea."
Most individuals, at some point in time, come up with "great ideas." They get all excited about their ideas and envision success. But, when they first inject their ideas into the real world, they usually fail. The key is to understand that a person must work through the practical problems that the competitive marketplace throws up against new ideas. It is almost impossible for a new idea to work completely right the first time it is injected into the real-world marketplace.
People naturally become disappointed and demoralized when their new ideas don't work. But, it is at this point that a person must say, "I now have the rare opportunity to uncover my mistakes and correct them." That is the beauty of the marketplace. It allows people to uncover their mistakes and correct them. In other areas of life, such a mechanism seldom exists to reveal a person's mistakes. Outside of business, people can go through their entire lives making the same mistakes over and over again. Those mistakes can cost them dearly -- financially and emotionally. And they may never uncover those mistakes or uncover them only after many years.
Mistakes in business, on the other hand, can be positive events. Business mistakes make themselves obvious via their bottom-line results. A person then has the opportunity to roll up his sleeves and correct those mistakes. He can then go on to succeed. Outside of business, people do not have the opportunity to so clearly identify their mistakes and get rid of them. That is why those who exert consistent effort and persistency in business succeed so handsomely over time.
The essence of television, from programs to commercials, is to capture peoples' attention. The individual viewer is up against some of the best minds in the country. Remember, the businessmen devising those shows put all of their dynamic ability into figuring out how to suck in viewers. In other words, dynamic tycoons like Ted Turner are working feverishly to suck you into their television programs. That's pretty tough competition to go up against. And if the viewer loses, getting sucked into a program, his work momentum will be snapped!
"I'll wager that the dynamic minds behind those television shows don't spend their evenings watching TV!" exclaimed Mark Hamilton.
Eric Savage needed Neo-Tech's typesetting manager, Mike, to get a hold of foreign-language typesetting programs so that foreign-language material could be typeset. Eric was abroad at the time, so he asked Mike during a phone conversation to track down foreign-language typesetting programs that could be run on Neo-Tech's Macintosh computers. Well, several weeks went by. Each time Eric inquired about the foreign-language programs, Mike stated how he was still waiting for some computer store manager to get back to him.
After three months had passed, Eric finally told Mike that he had to get those programs within one week. Several foreign-language projects were waiting to be typeset and could not be held up any longer. Mike then complained to Eric that he had called all the Apple computer stores in town. The only response Mike got was that the store manager would ask someone at the Apple distribution center about foreign-language programs and then that store manager would get back in touch with Mike. But no one was following up. "How do I get someone fired up to follow through on this for me?" Mike asked Eric.
Eric told Mike that he understood his frustration. Eric then explained to Mike that to succeed in business, a person cannot wait around for others to do things for oneself. "So few people employ integrated thinking; so few people are forward-essence movers. You cannot depend upon other people to get things done for you in business. You must instead aggressively think out alternative actions that you can take on your own to get what you need," Eric explained.
"In other words," Eric told Mike, "you must go on the offense. You must aggressively put control of a business situation into your own hands. You must get what you need yourself." In Mike's particular case, he must determine in his own mind that he is going to get what he needs right now. How is he going to do that? "Go on the offense," Eric explained. "Start by calling Apple Computer's headquarters in California. If you don't get the information you need during that phone call, then demand the phone number to their European headquarters. Apple's European headquarters would have to know of foreign-language programs designed for their Macintosh computers. You should be able to at least get the name of a software company in a foreign country that makes programs for the Mac in their own language. You can then call that overseas software company and arrange to order their foreign-language programs by express mail."
The next day Mike faxed Eric a note stating that within one-half hour of going on the offense, he tracked down every single foreign-language program he needed.
The power of employing offensive thinking to get what you need right now, instead of relying on someone else to get what you need, cannot be overstated. Eric explained at a subsequent company meeting how excited he was to see Mike move into offensive thinking. Mike accomplished in one-half hour of offensive thinking what would have otherwise taken weeks to accomplish.
Offensive thinking is what pushes a person into the league of forward-essence movers and dynamic entrepreneurs -- people who make things happen. The alternative is to wait around for others to make things happen for oneself. Such an approach will never lead to success.
In contrast, if a person hedges on a situation in order to present things according to his or her desires, that person begins cutting off future growth. For example, suppose a decision needs to be made about purchasing computer equipment. There may be certain equipment that a person who works with computers may personally desire. But, that person must struggle to present the full picture to others involved in making decisions about what equipment to buy. He or she must make sure all of the facts are clear to management. A person should never keep information from those involved in making decisions because he or she personally wants a particular piece of equipment. This can manifest itself in subtle forms, such as not giving proper emphasis on alternative solutions or substitute pieces of equipment.
This is especially important for those who work in technical areas, such as computers. For, a worker may know more about that area than the managers above him who must make final decisions. Those managers are relying on that worker for accurate, in-context information.
Presenting an accurate, in-context picture to others is also very important if a problem with another worker arises, if one is reporting back to management on a trip he or she took, or if one is describing a meeting he or she took part in. A person must always strive to give the most accurate assessment of a situation he or she can. A person must guard against reporting situations in a slanted way in order to satisfy personal feelings or desires.
Most people can think of, at any one time, several important projects that should be moved on. Traditional thinking leads individuals to think that they cannot possibly work on all of those projects at once. Most peoples' schedules already seem stretched to their limits. Thus, a person usually chooses one or two new projects to work on and puts the rest on hold. In reality, a person needs to do the opposite. One's attitude should be, "What the heck, I'll take them all on!" This forces a person to become dynamic. And it is this kind of pressure that pushes a person out of stagnation.
Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Henry Ford, and other business giants did not say "Oh, I'm too busy to work on that area of business; I can only work on this area for now." No, those business giants moved forward on everything that needed doing in their businesses -- everything. That's how they built empires.
You, too, can employ a "Do-Everything" approach. Anything and everything that needs to be done in your business -- just do it. Do it regardless of current schedules or responsibilities.
Management is responsible for keeping a company's essence moving forward. By struggling to understand where a manager's directive is coming from, a person will gain a wider perspective. Such a person will begin to integrate with his or her company's money-making essence.
Integrating with the directives and suggestions from managers above oneself is an important business tool. For, a manager knows when someone he or she is talking to is integrating with what is being said. Subordinates who do not integrate with what is being told them are like brick walls. A manager knows what he is saying is not being integrated and, therefore, his directives or suggestions are not really going to get carried out. That manager knows that he must keep following up and applying pressure to get his directives implemented. That contrasts to a person who takes the time and effort to integrate with what a manager is saying to him and why that manager is saying it. A manager knows when a subordinate is understanding and integrating what is being said. That manager also knows that his directives or suggestions are going to get implemented by that worker. Such an integrating worker comes to be known by management as someone who gets things done. Such a worker will be rewarded with increasing opportunity.
Mark Hamilton, for example, set up strict controls with a fulfillment company that Neo-Tech Publishing had contracted to process and fulfill book orders. The controls Mark devised were not complex, but they arose out of nothing. Mark had to exert deep concentration to devise and implement those controls so that he could follow the status of order processing and banking procedures each day. Only in this way could he immediately know if anything was missing, behind schedule, or processed incorrectly -- all of which are frequent problems in a mail-order business.
A forward-essence-moving manager must establish controls over procedures, marketing numbers, and accounting in order to successfully control his business and to move forward. A manager must concentrate really hard to develop controls over procedures and numbers so that nothing can go wrong without his immediately knowing about it. He must be able to track every procedure and quickly tell if something is wrong. He can then swoop down and fix a problem before it causes everything else in his company to fall behind, out of control, and then become hopelessly screwed up. For, that is what happens without controls. If a problem is not quickly spotted and resolved, it will spread to other areas. As a problem spreads, it becomes increasingly difficult to figure out where the originating cause lies. Correcting that problem can then become a nightmare.
A manager in control of his company can grow and succeed. A manager not in control of his company will spend all of his time putting out fires as they arise.
The analogy of an airline mechanic is a good perspective to have at work. A person should attempt to practice a similar degree of awareness at work -- all the way down to the smallest items concerning safety, computers, records, accounting, customer orders, and so on. For, these are areas where a minor act of carelessness can cause great havoc and chew up a lot of peoples' time. A careless error can crash a computer system, or cause a customer's record to be lost, or mess up a filing system, and so on.
Be aware of what you are doing at work. This becomes a habit with practice. Some workers are highly aware of what they are doing, while others are not. One should always think about what is going on. He or she should think ahead and think about how to avoid careless mistakes.
Consider the following example: an order processor at Neo-Tech Publishing was typing customer orders into a computer. To more easily reach each order, this processor pulled over to her side a wastebasket and then balanced those orders on the corner of that wastebasket. If she had been called away from her computer and someone else happened to brush against that wastebasket, all of those orders would have fallen inside that wastebasket and could have been thrown out. No one would have ever known what happened to those orders. That situation was a clear example of not thinking, of not acting with airline-mechanic-like carefulness.
A endless array of similar examples occur every day in all sorts of different work activities. But, by struggling to exert the awareness of an airline mechanic, a person can prevent a lot of careless mistakes. Every worker should strive to develop an airline-mechanic-like attitude. A worker should strive to eliminate sloppy or careless actions. That is necessary to succeed in an increasingly competitive world.
Consider, for example, the incredibly successful entre-preneur Walter Chrysler. Chrysler emotionally integrated with the most basic detail work within his company. He understood that such work is at the driving core of all business. Chrysler had an utter joy for getting down and dirty in the nitty-gritty work of his company. He started his career sweeping the floor at a Union Pacific railroad machine shop. He then became a mechanic at Union Pacific and eventually founded Chrysler Corporation.
Later, when Walter Chrysler built the Chrysler Building in New York City (the world's tallest building at the time), he learned all of the nitty-gritty details about running that skyscraper. He started by sweeping out the basement of that Chrysler building and learning every detail in that basement -- the building's structural foundation, its plumbing, its heating, and so on. Chrysler then meticulously labored his way up that building until he was on the roof learning all the details about that building's top.
Later, when Chrysler's son came into the business, he started work as a janitor in the basement of that same Chrysler building. Chrysler's son had to learn all of the nitty-gritty details of that building and its management. He literally worked his way up the building, just as his father had done. As a result, Chrysler's son became a very successful and able manager. Mastering the nitty-gritty, grind-out details of a business is the only way to build genuine power and is the only way to move a business forward.
In contrast, the children of other successful entrepreneurs often fail to exert the discipline to get down and dirty in the most nitty-gritty, grind-out details of their fathers' businesses. As a result, they never acquire real, earned power. They usually end up riding the essences that their fathers built and become a net drain on their companies.
Both Walter Chrysler and his son started their careers by performing the nitty-gritty details of business. Another person may start his career higher up in a company, but such a person will almost always have less long-range potential. Only by starting at the very bottom of a business and mastering its every working detail can a person completely understand and integrate with the essence of that business. By doing that, a person can then master each successive level and successfully delegate those details to others as he or she moves up. Such a person can competently manage all those under him. He has already performed that work himself. Eventually, that person is able to literally run every operation within his company.
That is what occurred with the DuPont family. The DuPont family was large, and management positions were competitive. Only those who started in the gun powder mills moved up to eventually take over the company. Such nitty-gritty individuals built tremendous strength by mastering the details of their business. DuPont family members did not just waltz into their company in top management jobs. That would have initiated the white-collar hoax. They would have drained their company's essence rather than build onto that essence. Instead, DuPont family members had to integrate their way to the top. That is why DuPont became the world's largest, most successful corporation, until the government broke it up via antitrust regulations.
By starting at the bottom of a company, learning about and integrating its most basic, nitty-gritty details, a person can map out a direct route to the top. By integrating with the most basic details of a business and then exerting integrated thinking and forward-essence movement, a person gains genuine, earned power. He or she becomes the person best equipped to carry forward and build upon that company's essence. A dramatic competitive edge accrues to that individual.
Digging into the nitty-gritty details and doing the sweat work of a company contrasts with a more traditional, less successful approach of waiting around to get a break -- waiting around to finally be designated a manager of some area. That leads to dependence upon others and stagnation in the competitive business world. The success approach is to say, "When do I get the opportunity to get down and dirty in the nitty-gritty detail work of this company? I want to learn about and integrate with the very essence of this company." That is the ticket to the CEO's chair.
But, in business, a person cannot just walk away from a worker who is being defensive. Other workers and the business itself are depending upon that worker handling his or her responsibilities properly. That is why defensiveness is so destructive in business.
Ironically, the way to handle defensiveness in business is to forget about all of the facts concerning the situation and instead focus on the point. A manager should say to a defensive employee something like, "O.K., what is your problem here? It's not the specific facts, those are obviously superfluous issues. Something else is bothering you. So let's hear what's causing your problem." The problem is whatever is causing that person's defensive attitude -- not the specific facts of a situation.
Defensiveness must be focused on and eliminated when-ever and wherever it occurs in business. Otherwise, it acts as an extremely destructive cancer seed. One individual's defensiveness can affect the work of many others in a company. Defensive attitudes can derail a company's forward momentum.
Whenever you don't feel like doing a particular task in business, whenever you find yourself putting something off to do later, reverse that situation. Instead, aggressively dive into such tasks. Those who dive into tasks they don't feel like doing will push forward and succeed. They simply outcompete everyone else.
An important distinction concerning the value of ideas must be recognized: There are two extremes of ideas and a whole range that fall in between. The most common type of idea is a more-or-less unintegrated, unearned idea that just pops into somebody's head. Such "good ideas" have never been through the many levels of integration required to bring them into the competitive marketplace.
The other extreme is an idea that comes from an integrated base of experience and red-to-black effort.[ 4 ] That is an earned idea, so to speak. For example, take a businessman like Henry Ford and his successful development of the mass production line. Ford was fully integrated with his ideas about mass production because he built them into a functioning, successful reality. Ford, therefore, could take his fully developed ideas about mass production and the car industry to some other company and his ideas would be worth millions of dollars. Such proven ideas are like fully developed packages. They are coming off of the tremendous base Ford already developed -- all the way up to the production and mass-marketing stages. Thus, a single idea of Ford's could be worth enormous sums.
The value of an idea must be put into context --i.e., the setting in which that idea was developed. The key to an idea's value is whether or not that idea is coming out of direct business experience. For example, Neo-Tech Publishing's forte is in direct mail and media advertising. If Neo-Tech's management developed some new ideas based on their integrated experience in marketing, such ideas would be evolving from years of real-world, commercial experience. Therefore, those ideas could be worth a lot of money. In contrast, if Neo-Tech's management began speculating in some new area in which the company did not have any direct experience, then such ideas would not be worth that much -- not until they were developed and injected into the real-world, competitive marketplace.
Consider how Neo-Tech Publishing Company spent many years developing and testing the direct-mail and media-advertising business. Neo-Tech's director then replicated his fully developed ideas to another start-up publisher out of good will. That publisher was up and running profitably in a matter of weeks because that publisher had been delivered fully integrated ideas from Neo-Tech's director. Thus, that new publisher was able to move right into red-to-black business dynamics without having to spend years learning and developing commercial business ideas from scratch.
As a final example, consider the real estate business in New York City. If some guy sitting at a bar has a "great idea" and says, "Let's build a commercial center on the East River Waterfront," that idea is essentially worthless as is. Anybody can easily think up a similar "great idea." But, suppose Donald Trump says that he has an idea to build a commercial center on the East River Waterfront. When Trump makes a statement like that, it is integrated with all his years of business experience and tens of millions of dollars in real-estate investment in New York City. Thus, Trump's idea is coming in as a much more developed package and can be considered an extremely valuable idea.
Mark explained how dumping crankiness represented a personal growing point: "If you run into a situation where the pressure you're under makes you cranky, then you're announcing to yourself and to the world that this is as far as you'll ever grow because you can't handle it from here on out. When you become cranky in business, you are signalling that you have reached your limit. Crankiness puts a lid on further growth."
Mark brought up an example of a small print shop owner named Dennis. Dennis was always cranky. He was constantly snapping at his employees as he frantically tried to push through printing jobs. Ten years later Dennis was still at that same little print shop, all cranky and stressed out -- he's at his limit and cannot grow beyond that level.
Similarly, when Neo-Tech Publishing Company was growing rapidly -- sales had doubled within a single year -- Mark Hamilton had not yet developed the management tools or the internal controls to keep up with the growth. Mark's desk was piled high with work, and the pile on his desk was growing faster than he was moving through it. Thus, Mark began getting cranky. "It gave me a certain sense of control because I could snap out orders and get `real tough' towards others," Mark explained. "Then, one day at dinner, the image of a cool and in-control master entrepreneur portrayed on a popular television series popped into my head. In contrast to that cool and in-control master entrepreneur, I had been cranky and stressed out all day long. All of a sudden I realized I was announcing to the world and myself `That's it, I'll never grow beyond this point.' I realized that if I didn't snap out of my little crankiness habit, I would never achieve the goals I had envisioned for myself. I then quit my crankiness habit cold turkey."
The point to remember is that the moment a person reaches a level in business where the pressure and work makes him cranky, he will never grow beyond that point. For, the moment one becomes cranky, he or she is out of control. That person is telling the world and himself that he cannot take on any more responsibilities because he can't handle the responsibilities he's already got. Crankiness is a crutch that prevents a person from learning how to become more efficient and obtain control over his work. A cranky person cannot move forward.
A drive-to-completion mentality encompasses a lot. Its primary attributes are energy and integrated thinking. That is why driving to completion is a rare trait. But, the person who is really valuable in business is the person who does not hesitate to dive into any area of work that is required to drive a task to completion.
The reason why a drive-to-completion mentality is so important is because almost all forward movement in business requires diverting into other areas. Yet, most people will hedge against digging into a task that can open up into new areas of work. For example, to take on a new project and complete it, say some sort of marketing project, that project will often require diverting into the computer area, the customer service area, the accounting area and other seemingly unrelated areas in order to get that specific marketing project up and running. But, a person usually resists getting involved in areas other than his own specialty at work. A marketing person, as an example, probably won't want to go and meet with a computer programmer to figure out a new computer system necessary to handle a new marketing project. Most individuals will experience an Energy Stop at that point. Energy Stops are mental and physical barriers that a person feels against moving into and conquering a new, necessary area of work. An Energy Stop occurs when a person stops exerting the effort required to push forward and complete the task on which he or she is working.
On the other hand, a drive-to-completion person will jump without hesitation into whatever area of work he must in order to solve all of the various intricacies necessary to complete his project -- no matter how many tangents this may take him on. Such tangent-like tasks, whether they be designing a new computer program, setting up new customer service procedures, coordinating suppliers to meet crucial deadlines, and so on, require digging in and exerting tough, integrated thinking to figure out what needs to be done. A drive-to-completion person won't hesitate to do that. He's ready to jump in with integrated thinking whenever and wherever necessary. Nothing will stop such a person from completing his or her project, right now!
"I'm too tired," or "It's not my area," or "I'm not interested in that work so I'll let someone else take care of those details for me," or "I'll stay in a following mode and let others handle the problems," are the excuses of a person who does not drive to completion. In contrast, a drive-to-completion person exhibits a fearlessness towards getting involved in new areas and exerting integrated thinking.
It is important to realize that almost everyone has a weakness against driving-to-completion. Almost every individual, if studied, will reveal major examples where he or she defaulted on exerting drive to completion. Thus, everyone needs to be aware of this concept and always work to increase their drive-to-completion intensity.
The importance of driving to completion cannot be over-emphasized. The person who works to develop a real drive-to-completion attitude in himself will get major, forward-moving projects offered his way. A drive-to-completion individual can keep growing, no matter what circumstances he or she is under, or for what company he or she works. All really successful business people exert an incredible drive-to-completion intensity. It is impossible to succeed in a big way without exerting a high, drive-to-completion intensity. Yet, so few people understand the concept of driving to completion and fail miserably at it.
A person should never react defensively when someone else makes a business integration. Instead, that person should recognize the value of such integrations and welcome them. A person should feel glad when somebody else spends the time to offer him or her a business integration.
Receiving a business integration from a co-worker or a manager is not analogous to receiving a scolding. In contrast, it can be the most valuable gift a person can receive. For, whenever a person receives a valid business integration, it removes limitations within that individual. That person is then free to move forward. Otherwise, that individual can remain stuck at a certain level until he figures out on his own errors he is making or develops more efficient techniques. That can take years of trial-and-error experience.
Recognizing the value of business integrations is an important trait when evaluating employees or prospective employees. If a person becomes defensive when business integrations are made to him, then it may not be worthwhile to work with that person. Such a person will never really succeed because he will not be open to effective learning and growth. Such a person builds a wall around himself and his area at work. Personal growth stops.
In contrast, the individual who recognizes the value of business integrations can ascend to the top as he absorbs all new knowledge revealed to him. Such a person will appreciate and make use of the knowledge and experience of those around him.
Later that same month, a major credit rating company sent Neo-Tech Publishing Company a double invoice. Of all the businesses out there, a person would think that a credit rating company could be trusted. Eric could hardly believe it when that credit rating company attempted to double-bill Neo-Tech Publishing. Once again, without Eric being closely integrated with the financial details of his area, that bill would have been paid twice. But, Eric recognized that this particular bill had already been paid three months earlier. When Eric called that credit rating company about their double invoice, their response was, "We're sorry. There must have been something wrong with our computer."
This exemplifies why a manager must maintain a full integration with finances -- particularly monies paid out. Otherwise, a company can sink into black-to-red, money-losing dynamics. A single bill paid twice, or an invoice charging too high an amount for services rendered, can wipe out a week's profits or even a month's profits.
A problem concerning financial details is that people tend to feel safe when bills are computerized. In reality, the opposite may be true. Computers constantly err because the clerks inputting information into computers make mistakes. Anyone who has experience with computers knows how easy it is, and how common it is, to mess up a computer by inputting wrong information or by pressing a wrong command. Today, in an age of computers, there are lots of unintegrated and inexperienced workers entering information into computers. Thus, it is more important than ever for a manager to stay closely integrated with all of the financial details regarding his area of business. That is the only way to prevent costly mistakes.
When you do this, you will realize the importance of striving to become, within your own little area at work, as productive as possible. You can be on the first rung at work, yet within your own area you can strive to be a dynamic, tycoon-like individual. This, in turn, makes work increasingly exciting, and it is the stepping stone for moving forward and rising up.
Once you identify the crucial role you play in the produc-tion of values at your company, you will want to push your-self to your limit. Realize that you can become like a CEO within your own area at work. Strive to be as productive and creative as you can. That is the route to everything.
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[ 2 ] See Integrated Thinking: The Essence of Power and Wealth, Chapter V.
[ 3 ] Chapter V also discusses the forward-essence mode.
[ 4 ] See The Value-Draining, Black-to-Red Mode Versus the Value-Building, Red-to-Black Mode, Chapter XI.
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