INDIANAPOLIS BUSINESS
JOURNAL
Small
Biz
VOL. 27 NO. 48, JAN. 29-FEB. 4, 2007
Leadership
Keep gathering new ideas, but don't try them all
By CJ McClanahan
Did you happen to catch that great article on building a 24/7 marketing plan in last month's issue of Entrepreneur magazine? What about Fast Company's story on your laptop becoming obsolete? I'm sure you also got a lot of great ideas from reading a few of 2006's best-selling business books, including "Blink," "The Fred Factor" or the soon-to-be-classic "Think and Grow Rich." And after you caught up on your reading, I am certain you attended at least one seminar last year that addressed an important business challenge.
If you are taking the time to read this article-and you are not my wife, who knows I will eventually ask "Did you like my column this month?"-then you, like me, are an avid learner. Some people might even say people like us are obsessed with self-improvement.
The opportunities to absorb information (read, listen or watch) that will help us both personally and professionally are absolutely unlimited. If you have any doubt, just visit Google or Amazon and list a topic that you want to learn more about; you'll find hundreds, if not thousands, of resources.
And-let me make this clear-even though every single topic has been addressed by someone already, informational outlets like books, blogs and Webcasts are going to continue providing you with more information than you ever thought possible.
This proliferation of information begs the question: "Is there anything wrong with continual learning?"
Absolutely not. I am a firm believer that as leaders we always should spend time learning and improving ourselves. It is an undeniable physical law of the universe that if you are not getting better, you are getting worse.
However, it is very easy to get overwhelmed with all of this information (or as I like to call it, opportunities for improvement).
We all have said to ourselves, "I must change immediately!" after finishing a book, reading a magazine or leaving a workshop. There is nothing wrong with wanting to change or improve. The problem arises when we get obsessed with this desire to change every single time we learn something new.
As business leaders, we can't let this happen to us-at least not as much as it does today. And I am as guilty as you.
We all have had a boss (or been the boss) who announces at almost every single staff meeting, "Forget our discussions from last week! I just read a great new book on marketing and we are going to change everything!" The obvious problem is that your team eventually will begin to tune you out because they know that you will eventually latch onto something new.
The answer to this dilemma is not to stop learning. Rather, the solution is to know the difference between learning that should lead to an immediate change and information that is just interesting and should be tucked away into your subconscious.
Before you can say "thanks for pointing out the obvious," let me provide you with two simple tactics for helping you understand this difference.
-- Focus. Get crystal clear about what you want to achieve in the upcoming year. At the very least document your top three business goals for the upcoming year. Anything that doesn't clearly support these goals should be put on the far back burner.
-- Understand your business. Spend time finding an answer to the following question: "What are the fundamental improvements that I need to make in me and/or my business to hit my goals in 2007?" If you learn something that doesn't clearly address one of these improvements, I recommend you again visit the back burner.
The key to improving in 2007 is not to identify a boatload of new and amazing ideas. Those are everywhere. The secret is to understand which of these ideas should be embraced and which of these should be filed away as interesting-and even really helpful-but not relevant based on current goals and priorities.
This discipline is extremely important to being an effective leader.
But it is also very difficult. We all want to be the type of leader who is on top of every new trend. None of us wants to be the guy at the industry seminar who says, "No, we've not implemented that practice in our business yet this year."
Here's my advice: Don't be afraid to be the leader who confidently claims, "We decided against trying that because it didn't clearly support our goals at this time."
Resist the temptation to embrace and implement all good ideas this year. Work hard to make 2007 the year to simplify your thinking and practice the discipline of putting everything else on the back burner.
CJ McClanahan is a business coach and inspirational speaker with ReachMore Strategies. He can be reached at 576-8492 or cjm@goreachmore.com.
