I recently attended Patrick Lencioni’s first-ever UnConference, an event focused on teamwork, leadership and organizational health. Patrick, the acclaimed author of Five Disfunctions of a Team, The Advantage, and many other books, delivered a wealth of information around maximizing the “health” of your company. Additionally, he had several renowned CEOs who shared their leadership strategies and successes in driving winning cultures in their organizations. One of the most extraordinary was the keynote from Alan Mulally, the legendary former CEO of Boeing and then Ford, who is credited for turning Ford into the number one automobile brand in the USA. 

Alan has been on Fortune’s list of World’s Greatest Leaders. He’s also known as one of the kindest, most authentic leaders. As he spoke in depth about the leadership principles that have guided him throughout his career, I could absolutely see why all of this was true.  In fact, he believes that Skilled and Motivated Teams are the foundation of every successful company, and he showed us his Principles, Practices and Management Systems which were printed on a single sheet, and said he reviewed this with his team before each meeting. 

We’ve all been guilty of it. We’re making solid progress on a goal, putting in the up-front work and watching it move from idea to execution. Then something new comes along — a fresh idea, interesting project or new marketing strategy that suddenly grabs our time and attention. 

This is the Shiny Object Syndrome…it’s the Disease of Distraction! It may be what’s preventing you from successfully scaling your business. You not only confuse your team, you may burn through cash and you’re often jumping ship before realizing any meaningful results.

Most of us are enjoying the vacation months and warm weather — including record heat in many places — yet August signals the end of summer. This is especially true in our businesses, where we go from a more relaxed pace to full-throttle the moment the calendar switches to September. 

Suddenly, the end-of-the-year countdown is upon us, and we only have four months to meet our annual goals. Our calendars get filled with budget reviews, prioritization meetings, status updates and the entire business seems to be operating in race-mode.