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Family First Leadership (Part 2)

Leadership starts at the home first.  Work on your own family first before working on others.  Thirty years from now when all other groups of people have all but forgotten who you are your family will remember you.  Your wife will remember when you refused to drag her across the finish line; instead, you encouraged her and walked with her every step of the way while she grew as a person.

Now don’t misunderstand me.  We have a responsibility (men and women) to protect our families and keep them from harm.  But never let our responsibility to protect them interfere with their need to grow as individuals.  The world has little use for people who are never progressing.  Success is a combination of opportunity and experience.  Never give the people you love a false sense of what it takes to succeed in the world while shielding them.  Shield them from the negative influences but give them room to grow and above all else make sure they know you love them and are there for them.

God Bless,

Mikhail

Family First Leadership

 

Why would you do for others what you would not do for your family?  Why is it that we are quick to develop leaders in other areas of the world but we would not develop our own husband’s or wives, or brothers and sisters, or cousins, or even our kids? 

Or how about this one, why would sell a product to other people which we would not sell to the people we love?  This could be anything from an insurance policy to a health product.  It is even commonly found in our faith.  We in

America

love jumping at a chance to evangelize a person in

Africa

or

South America

but would balk at the thought of approaching our neighbors.

 

So here is today’s challenge.  I challenge you to take inventory of important things you do for other people that isn’t practiced at home.  Then pull up your skirts and pants and do it for the people in your home first before offering it to other people.

 

This includes:

 

Cutting grass

Doing the pool

Making sure that your loved ones are ok (through actual face to face conversation)

Giving a cousin or sister a ride someplace when they ask.

Calling a loved one and selling (yes selling) them a product you believe in and sell to others regularly.

Anything that deals with serving or adding value to their life.

Any and all of the above.

Life Has No Surprises

I’ve noticed over the past few months that for the most part there are no surprises in life.  Typically (in the long run) most people get exactly what they pay for.  In fact I would say most people get more than they paid for and this could work to be either your biggest blessing or biggest curse.  

 

If you build your life around strong, positive relationships and an honest sense of purpose then you should expect to have great things enter your life over the course of time.  If you build a life around pride and ego, poor relationships, and bad wisdom you can expect to have more struggles and hardships show up at your door. 

 

Don’t misunderstand me this isn’t to say that every bad thing is a result of your bad decisions.  There are some things in life that we just can’t help.  I’m more concerned with how you build foundations and how you play the game.  Life has an expected value for every decision we make, so do your best to play smart.

 

And if you have never thought about this life philosophy before, think about it now.  What you do with this information is entirely up to you.  So if you’re a person going through a lot and looking for a big positive change in your life, know that I am on your side and start with some of the information found on this blog.

Mikhail Hutton

The Work of a Legacy Lives on Forever

The title sounds pretty obvious doesn’t it?  If a man (or woman) does great work, it should live for ever…shouldn’t it?  I’ve found that there are two types of work in life.  The things that die when we go to the grave and the things that live on regardless of whether we live or die.  You can always tell the person likely to become a legacy.  They carry certain qualities with them at all times.

First they recognize that legacy work takes a team.  There is no way to do something long lasting on your own.  Legacy work has to be bigger than you are.

Second, legacy work has a habit of drawing other great people to it.  Tied to the statement made above the quality of your work will obviously be tied to the work of your people (so choose wisely).

Third and finally, it is always people focused.  Legacy work isn’t about you, it’s about other people.

Mikhail Hutton

Where I do my Legacy work

Life Variance

(From my old blog at today.com)

It is impossible for life to hold down smart, humble people who consistently make good decisions.  I’ve been working on an idea that I’ll call life variance.   For those of you unfamiliar with the term variance, it’s simply another way to say that there are upswings and downswings in any activity. 

For example in business it might mean there are times when everything is going right, followed by times where you have to work extra hard to dig out some results (or deal with things that are going wrong).  In our own personal lives I’ve come to see this term mean there are times when everything we do seems pretty easy and good and times where we need to work extra hard just to keep our relationships and our mindsets in the right place.  

Many people try to do something about this.  I wouldn’t suggest trying to fix the cycle.  Instead, understand that it’s just the way things work in life. It’s normal.  It does not reflect poorly on you and it’s just another chance to grow.  The key is to stick to the above statement: Be smart and humble. Focus on making good decisions consistently.  That way when the storms of life begin to hit your house, your foundations are strong enough to wait on the next upswing that’s sure to come your way. 

What are you doing to fix your own life variance?  Are you in a place to recieve more when the upswings hit?  If not why not and what will you do about it?

 Mikhail H.

http://twitter.com/mikhutt

Traction

I recently read a book called “The Orange Code.” It talked a lot about the idea of building a brand around a cause and committing to that cause. It’s been something that speaks to my own life lately as I’ve had several “ah ha” moments about what creates lasting purpose. 

One of the biggest things this book reflected on without actually talking about it was the idea of traction. In simple terms traction is an act of drawing or pulling, a form of influence if you may. In our own lives the things that really matter and will be long lasting should draw or pull other people to that cause as well. It would be up to you to create the vision and the people to make it possible. Many people fail to generate that sort of traction because they have no cause in their lives, nothing that really gets them up in the morning. 

What causes are you pursuing in your life that is bigger than yourself? Are you actually generating traction or are you just sputtering along? If not, what can you do about it? And oh by the way, there can be no cause without commitment and no traction either.

Mikhail Hutton

Your "In" Network

Lately the issue of one's circle of influence has been coming up  in my conversations.  A great example is taking business advice from people who have never run a business before.  You know the old saying "success creates success."  It's true for so many other areas as well.  A lot of times we go searching for the answers to lifes problems from people who have never walked the road we are travelling.

 With the election of Barack Obama I have been hearing a lot about his associations and beliefs.  Like him or hate him, the truth about his character will come out in the next few months or years and to see whether or not it will help or hurt our country one have only to look at his most close associations. 

On the flip side, McCain was hurt by his associations.  Being too closely tied to President Bush may have caused him a healthy stack of votes.  The sad truth is that we are judged by our associations whether we like it or not.  So choose wisely who you surround yourself with, it says a lot about who you are and will make a large impact on your future.

Mikhail Hutton

www.thehilgroup.com

The Danger of Influence

Recently I sat down with a group of College Pastors to follow up on their results for the past few months of ministry.  I worked with them a few months back to help provide some guidance for their 1 year goals of the ministry.  I was trying to work with them to figure out how to tackle some of their tough problems.  It was in this group of meetings that I began to identify the different types of killers who are involved in meetings.  So as a quick reference here it is.

For lack of creativity in naming I made them very strait forward [edit: I now have names ].  In the future I'll find a catchy name for the groups.  But I realized how important it is to identify these people because meetings are the place that teams and organizations come to either thrive or die.  A bad or tense-filled meeting will typically mean a sort of death by personality.  But here they are.

Killer 1:  (Typically the main culprit) The NCO's aka Sergeants

This is great if they can bring people together and get ideas going which Sergeants typically do. The danger is when they are unable or incapable of pushing the organization in a positive way.  Could be a result of pride or simply could be a result of lack of training.  I'm idealistic and like to think most times it comes down to lack of experience and training in this area.  They are hard workers but need outside instruction or leadership if they can't handle the responsibility of making decisions for everyone. It's very important to stifle their control in meetings unless they are truly equipped to make the bulk of your decisions.

 
Killer 2: The Assassin

This person may or may not have good ideas but we can never know without them opening up.  A lot of the time they provide some of the best ideas considering their careful, well thought out analysis.  It's up to the rest of the leadership/team to draw the opinions and beliefs of this type of person out to get their input in the decision making process.  It's also important to stifle the assertive types so that they fee like they can contribute.  The killer here is the lost ideas that never get put on the table.  They may feel like a part of the team but functionally they are not performing at their best.
 
Killer 3: The "I dont know's" (Still no name here, Ideas anyone?)

This type of person doesn't feel like they are eye to eye with everyone else.  Typically comes from being new or having a lack of confidence.  Understanding their roll and directing them towards tasks will typically help keep them involved.  This group is best dealt with be giving them confidence in their credibility.  They will need to hear it frequently and will typically turn into one of the above once they get comfortable.  The death here is that often what happens is they will begin to feel resentful or out of place.  Over time they begin to question whether they are actually contributing to the team and never get the chance to open up and confidently contribute.

So where does the danger come? It comes when these people begin to interact with other members of the group who aren't leaders.  When this happens the people they impact will pick up the same problems/habits as they do and can work as a slow poison to your growth.

Another way it hurts is that the organization never gets the benefit of having all ideas out on the table.  It kills innovation and momentum and can create big problems without having them dealt with as soon as possible.

That's it for now.  Be good kids ;)

Mikhail

theHILgroup

Leading From the Family

 

This might be stretching it for most people but I think it’s a common thing today to see our business lives control how we run our personal lives.  I truly believe that if we want overall success the formula needs to be reversed. So how does this work?

 

People who know how to manage their personal lives well often build the best businesses.

Consider the skills involved in a strong family life.  Negotiating a win/win with the husband/wife in tough situations, setting standards and goals for the kids so they can produce top results, and building a team environment where you lead from the front and set the example.

 

This person would probably be much better at handling conflict, speaking with their team,  and will more often than not be honest and up front with their managers as well as their clients.  This type of leader generates a bigger sense of community where everyone understands their role and feel like a part of the team. 

 

Who are some of the top business leaders that you know?  Are they building lasting organizations?  And are they putting their family first to ensure peace, joy, and success in all areas of their lives?

Mikhail
the HIL group

Finding a way to win

If you have ever read any of my stuff you know that I'm a big fan of sales.  There are few arenas where you can actually be paid the full value of what you're worth as well as sales.  The reason being it's the lowest paying or highest paying job a person can have if they put in the right amount of work.  But with it comes certain expectations and skills that you MUST have. 

You must always find a way to win.
You must be great with people.
You must be a great communicator.
You must not let your success define who you are.

And of course there are other fringe variables as well.  But these "must's" are tough to come by.  Many people are given an incorrect expectation about sales and what it takes to build a life around it.  Considering that only 10% of people produce well over 75% of the volume for most companies it leaves a person to wonder why so many people flock towards such a brutal profession 

What are some other musts that a person should ahve to succeed?  And why do so many people want a career in sales?  Post your response and see what others say.