A SIMPLE REMINDER

April 1, 2023

If you are like me, you sometimes need a reminder on how to roll. I carry in my wallet a laminated list of the Ten Commandments along with a couple other self-calibrating tools. For my business there are two other special readings that I review from time to time to help ensure I am on track. I would like to share them; you just might know of someone else who might need to read them.

From Dr. John Townsend: “To reach your most important goals in life, you will have to experience unhappiness. What is really important in life — and in your leadership beyond reason –– has to do with your values. These values bring meaning and purpose to life. They are larger than you, they existed before you did, and they will continue long after you are gone. They make life make sense to you. And they will require diligence, conflict, heated debate, confrontation, delaying gratification, patience, failure, perseverance and labor. No one who builds a great organization, leads people to a worthy goal, crafts a successful marriage, or launches competent kids does so without some measure of unhappiness along the way. But for people to undertake a life of meaning and purpose, losing some happiness along the way is a small price to pay. The eventual achievement and results bring all the happiness they need in the end.”

From “The Spirit of Performance” by Peter Drucker: “The purpose of an organization is to enable common men to do uncommon things. Mortality to have any meaning at all must not be exhortation, sermon or good intentions. It must be practices. Specifically:

1. The focus of the organization must be on performance. The first requirement of the spirit of performance is high performance standards for the group as well as for each individual.

2. The focus at the organization must be on opportunities rather than on problems.

3. The decisions that affect people — their placement, pay, promotion, demotion and severance — must express the values and beliefs of the organization.

4. Finally in its people decisions, management must demonstrate that it realizes that integrity is one absolute requirement of any manager and the only quality that he has to bring with him and cannot be expected to acquire later on.

History reflects that neglect of managers performance and development, worker performance and public responsibility often results in the practical and tangible loss of market standing, technological leadership, productivity and profit and ultimately in the loss of business life.”

Like most things in life, knowing what to do is the easy part!  Doing what we need to do is what differentiates the common from the uncommon!  For me, the saying “No pain, no gain” is a heartfelt and meaningful statement. God Bless you on your life journey!

Written by KING AEROSPACE Founder, Jerry Allan King-Echevarria.