Posted by & filed under Professional Development.

This equation leads to the following which will prevent your growth?

  • No Innovation
  • No Continuous Improvement
  • No Awareness
  • No Personal Growth
  • No Professional Growth
  • No Time To Develop Relationships
  • No Personal Satisfaction

In other words: No Future
Does this resonate with you?

We Offer a Lasting Solution

You must create time and space within your personal and professional life. But how? Step 1 is creating a vision and context that allows you free time.

Need proof that it works? Take a look at the work of Steve Jobs, Henry Ford, Jack Walsh, or any of the highly successful people you know. You will see the power of the right vision and context as a strategy to make things happen.

The good news is you can apply this strategy to all aspects of your life.

Our Support

Future - Next ExitWe have a partner who is a specialist in helping you create time and space for better critical thinking. She uses a three-fold tactical method that supports the vision/context approach. We would be happy to meet with you and discuss how you can develop a clear vision, the right context and the action steps necessary to create the space that you and your team need.

Posted by & filed under Leadership.

As the leader of your company, department or your life, have you STOPPED and done your first review of the young year?

Did You Ask Yourself These 3 Key Questions?

  1. Did I present my game plan so those people I need to help me achieve it are clear about what needs to be done and are on board with doing it?
  2. How empowered do you feel? How empowered are others? (A good sign that your plan is designed right is that people feel empowered by it.)
  3. What do you have to do so you bench your ego and ensure this goes forward as a team effort?

This is a tough question for most of us. If you are saying I really don’t have an ego you don’t understand yourself very well and are unlikely to develop the support you need to create a successful yearly game plan.

Good News – Free support is available.

Go to johnruh.com and read any of the numerous free blogs under leadership, culture and/or professional development.

February Special Offer
Even better than reading our blogs we will meet with you and do a one-time, free mini-session (one hour) with you (and/or your team) to discuss the what, why’s and how’s of creating a solid game plan and the three ways to support it right.

Posted by & filed under Leadership.

Scenario 1:

A bunch of 6-year-olds get together to play their first game of baseball. None of them knows the rules of the game, how to run bases, get anyone out, what position to play, how to hit the ball, or what to do next if they manage to connect. The coach is going bonkers! What happened? What can he do to get things on track and get sanity back?

Scenario 2:

Sue comes to work for you and she’s a pro with lots of experience, but she’s not a team player. The first week on the job, she scores some successes, but breaks every rule in your book. She makes end runs around you and the proper procedures and is oblivious to the goals the rest of your team has incorporated. What’s happened here? Do you have the resources or tools that will get her to play by the rules? Can you teach her to use her skills for the good of the team, or should she be sent to the showers?

Both stories indicate what happens when people have no clue about the rules of the game or how you play ball. In order to win in business, several things must be in place….

First: All team members must grasp how the game is played in general.

Second: Team members must understand how you play the game–your own rules, goals and
most importantly, the corporate core values that define Your Way of Doing Business.

Third: Players must embrace a vision of what winning means to the organization.

Fourth: Your coaches (managers) must have tools on hand that help them recruit stars and
communicate the game plan.

Successful companies that consistently chalk up winning seasons have all these things in place. Helping you establish them in your business is where we come in. We can support you at clarifying your vision and core values, get your rules in a row and explain it all in a clear, understandable manner. Why? So you and your coaches/managers can use these tools to attract talent who can win for you and with you. It’s also critical so managers can “coach” better working with players who understand the rules of your game.

P.S. Our mission is to partner with leaders at creating the support they truly need.

P.P.S. Call/email for one free, 90 minute group session on how to do this.

Posted by & filed under Professional Development.

GiftsEveryone has Gifts and Talents
Do you know what your gifts and talents are?

Have you acknowledged them?
Do you know how to properly utilize and maximize your skills?
Do you know how to augment your weaknesses?

  • You have a unique set of gifts and talents!
    Yet many people have heads that are filled with nots! (I am not you fill in the blank).
    Or they ruminate on the “ERs” of life (I need to be “smartER”, “richER”, etc.).
  • How can you change your internal messages and stop sabotaging your own success?
    More importantly, how can you start accepting yourself (both strong and weak areas) and learn to utilize or augment them as needed?
  • We all have gifts and a uniqueness which, when acknowledged and utilized, can give you both material success and a great sense of personal satisfaction. Ultimately, they can give a special gift called peace of mind which, from my perspective, is priceless.

“No one is ever hired for their weaknesses.”
John Ruh

P.S. Read my story. It will give you hope (johnruh.com/im-living-proof-you-dont-need-nuttin-to-be-successful/).

P.P.S. A gift for you from us…one free management behavioral profile to help you identify and use your true gifts.

Posted by & filed under Leadership.

Leader-to-Leader

December is usually a very tough month due to fewer working days, the holidays and all the personal things one must do. However, speaking leader-to-leader, here are three things I think we all need to do:

  1. Take care of business…all the day-to-day tactical stuff and wow our clients in the here and now.
  2. Do a review of this year be it individually, department or company wide. johnruh.com/3-simple-steps-for-annual-business-planning/.
  3. Create a powerful game plan for next year that empowers you and your team. johnruh.com/the-game/.

This can be a daunting task for all of us. You are not alone. The secret is to enroll the support you truly need. Call/email us and can refer specialists and simple processes that help.

Posted by & filed under Leadership.

3 Simple Steps for Annual Business Planning

We absolutely/positively must complete this year well (take care of business), get our strategic initiatives (continuous improvement projects) completed, and design a super game plan (be it individual, departmental, or company), so we can enroll the support we need to have a successful next year.

It takes time to do this well, so let’s start now.

Step 1: November Focus: Annual Company Review – include ALL employees.

  1. Do an annual company survey to get everyone’s input so we can enroll all stakeholders and show our respect for their participation. Support: Debbie Rust, PH: 630-469-0592, Email: darust@ameritech.net. Debbie can help you:
    1. Design a simple survey consisting of 5-7 questions.
    2. She can also help the DIY’ers out there as well.
  2. Review/analyze this year’s budget results and define your preliminary budget for next year.
  3. Complete all key continuous improvement initiatives and projects for this year.

Step 2: December Focus: Next Year’s Game Plan

  1. With key inside and outside manager/leaders create a game plan for next year.
  2. Managers prepare their departmental plans and possibly complete annual individual reviews.
  3. Make sure that budget and support needs, (including key continuous improvement initiatives), are outlined to support A & B.

Step 3: January Focus: Roll out of game plan

  1. By January 15th, roll out key goals. Ideally this will include your long-term vision, mission and key values, giving everyone the 4 basic things they need to know (vision, goals, mission and values). As a group, outline the support you truly need.
  2. Review the roles and mission of each position and put them into the game plan.
  3. Reinforce continuous improvement needs to develop habits in the new year and start key initiatives. It is critical to make continuous improvement (CI) a habit vs. implementing only when problems occur.

Special Offer

  • Survey contracted by November 10 = (10% discount)
  • One free session with John and/or one of his specialists on how to do 3-Step Implementation

Free Leadership articles
Go to our blog for articles on vision, culture, leadership, recruiting, sales, professional development and book/DVD summaries.

Posted by & filed under Continuous Improvement.

What is your continuous improvement budget for your company?

What is your continuous improvement budget for your department?

What is your continuous improvement budget for yourself?

Perhaps the single most important thing you need to do in order to at least survive and ideally thrive in any market is to make change and continuous improvement a habit like brushing one’s teeth johnruh.com/brushing-your-teeth/.

Why bother? (My answers)

  1. This may sound a bit dramatic but history proves we either change or die.
    So your job or your department or your company’s survival is dependent on making the needed changes in order to be sustainable. Need proof? Look around you.
  2. It prevents Burnout
    Have you ever noticed that great achievers never seem to burn out? I have studied success and satisfaction since age 19 and I have noticed that leaders in a continuous improvement mode, be it personal or professional, rarely experience burnout.
  3. You can thrive if you practice continuous improvement.
    Those companies, those departments and those individuals that make continuous improvement (which they may call innovation) a habit and consistently create services, products and programs that serve the coming market needs, thrive. Classic examples are Edison, Ford, and Steve Jobs but others are all around us. Forward thinking leaders reap the benefits (money, status, more security) as a result of being in a continuous improvement mode instead of implementing change ONLY when a problem occurs.

Suggested Action
Let’s talk or meet or better yet, have a one-time, one-hour session (at no charge) to discuss the topic and make continuous improvement a key component of your new year’s game plan.

P.S. Another article we wrote is Continuous Improvement, Continuous Improvement, Continuous Improvement. johnruh.com/continuous-improvement/

Posted by & filed under Leadership.

Best Practices1. Have a clearly stated game plan built on your business culture.

Why?

  1. No one can successfully play any game if they don’t know the rules or how the game is to be played.
  2. Culture is the foundation of any business or life for that matter.
  3. Business culture needs to be put first and foremost truthful in a practical language and with clearly stated vision, goals, mission and values.

2. Create a sales program that covers three key areas and has strong new business development component.

Why?

  1. You do not want to be TOTALLY dependent on your relationship management and customer responsiveness to create new business for you.
  2. NBD creates growth and a company that is not growing is dying.
  3. A is very risky if you don’t have NBD working.
  4. You will have tremendous issues are finding and retaining leaders and strong role players if they see or feel you don’t have a future that excites them.

3. Make sure you have a recruiting program that can find 8, 9 and 10 players consistently.

Why and How

  1. Set up a program like all major professional sports teams and many very successful companies have. Why; It works!
  2. Discuss with us how to hire a 1099 contract recruiter that ONLY represents you (and can save you $).
  3. Follow a proven 5-step program, best practice process that works. Learn how to interview not only for qualifications but for business culture alignment and the traits (johnruh.com/chicago-business-recruiting-model/) you need in any new hire.

Posted by & filed under Uncategorized.

Wait... Summer Is Over?

As a leader what must I do to make sure this year ends on a high note?

Here is my answer to the above. (Feel free to share yours.)

  1. Outline “Must Do” Continuous Improvement Initiatives and support them right.
    We must all change or die. That sounds dramatic but our jobs, our departments and our companies only survive when we understand and practice continuous improvement like brushing our teeth. Continuous improvement initiatives are notoriously tough to do between Thanksgiving and Christmas.Our Support: Lean on us to discuss how to make continuous improvement a habit like Brushing your teeth (johnruh.com/brushing-your-teeth/).
  2. Make sure we have in place the three best practice programs any company large or small needs.
    Our Support: We are doing a separate piece on this.  Call/email and it will be sent to you.
  3. Share all information (good and bad) with everyone.
    We attended the leadership summit (along with 300,000) internationally. Alan Mulally, who was CEO/President of Ford Motor Company when they turned it around, discussed how he did it. He stated that if you want everyone to be accountable for the success of the company they need to know the score. He also said was that everyone needed to be transparent with each other, beyond just sharing all information.

P.S.
Our support. We are happy to support you with the above and will do a one free 60-minute session on any of these topics and what we learned at the summit. When do you do want to speak/meet?

Posted by & filed under DISC.

Many businesses could drastically improve their performance by running DISC profile assessments, but most people are unaware of how much they stand to gain. The DISC assessment is a tool designed to help describe an individual’s behavior patterns, and it’s one of the leading ways to improve internal communications and processes. To date DISC assessments have been used to profile millions of employees in businesses all around the world, so let’s take a closer look at the benefits of an assessment.

Top Benefits

There are a multitude of benefits, but the first is that the assessment aids leadership and executive development. It doesn’t only help top tier leaders, though, and it will also aid in other levels of management training. More and more organizations are evolving towards a flatter internal hierarchy, forcing leaders to interact with more subordinates today than ever before. And an effective leader needs to have a clear understanding of the personality traits of employees he/she oversees.

DISC Profile Assessment

But also consider things from a team building and training perspective. If your business wants to build and train a talented sales team, you’re going to need qualified candidates who are fit for the task. Without the right personality and skill set, your sales force may be full of people who aren’t well suited for closing sales. Likewise, you may have customer service staff who aren’t emotionally equipped to handle conflict management and communicate well the customers they support. People are wired differently and naturally suited to handle different tasks better than others, and a DISC assessment will help identify strengths and weaknesses of employees.

HR Considerations

There’s no doubt about it – HR plays a key role in the success of any organization. Not only do they help filter head hunting endeavors, but they also serve to retain employees. Furthermore, they typically are burdened with the task of finding appropriate candidates who align with the company’s culture. All of this and more can be augmented with DISC assessment to ensure that fewer mistakes are made.

As such, role and behavioral analysis tools go hand in hand with the HR department like peanut butter and jelly. Not only can the tool help outline and identify certain behavioral needs for certain positions, but it can even help avert potential litigation by integrating behavioral-based assessment into interviews. Ultimately, this helps the business save time, money, and hassles by ensuring that only the right candidates are accepted to become part of the team. The alternative is backtracking by rehiring, which is an expensive and time consuming endeavor. Last but not least, the DISC assessment will help reduce HR complaints by increasing employee communication, avoid and resolve conflicts, and build relationships built on trust.

Seeking Assistance

Performing internal assessments can add tremendous long-term benefits to businesses of any size, but failing to perform DISC assessments could be costing your business hard earned profits. For help improving internal communication and understanding with DISC assessments, contact John M. Ruh and Associates.