Personal Development

How to Be Successful Using Simplicity

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The best business strategies are always simple:  bringing business to its core customers, deepening relationships with them and providing them only the products they want. Companies win when they focus on simplicity.

Complexity is the other opposite of simplicity, and as surprising as it may sound most Managers tend to like complexity rather than use simplicity as a strategy: most tend to extend product lines, look for marginal customers, new projects, different marketing methods, etc.

Now, to be fair, in any large company, as in the world at large, most things are not naturally simple. You have to make them simple.

Therefore, not everything can be made simple, but you can concentrate on the few important things where simplicity is most likely to make you and your company successful. Target the problems that you suspect will have simple solutions (the feasible ones).

Simplicity is a combination of art with cost reduction -  providing the most exciting product or service at the most affordable cost. Apple, for example, was so successful due to the concept of simplicity. Henry Ford did the same for cars, Eastman did it for photography.

Simplicity requires a deep understanding of a product’s core essence. At the hearth of simplicity lies accessibility.

The essence of simplification is grasping what is and what is not important in a complex picture – make it recognizable and easy to understand or use.

The mark of a great leader is someone who simplifies in such a way that his or her listeners grasp one powerful conclusion and then act on it.

In order to simplify a Manager has to:

  • Focus
  • Define the core essence of your business (product, customer, cost)
  • Establish a simple goal at a time.
  • Avoid distractions outside of the established goal
  • Standardize
  • Automatize
  • Have people you can trust rather than processes to follow

Work Smarter Not Harder

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Most Managers work over 60 hours per week while the few ones work the 40 weekly hours or even few hours less.    

Not in all cases, but in most cases, the latter ones tend to work smart rather than work hard, they guide themselves by the 80/20 principle – they award themselves a life while at the same time produce great results.

They usually do only what they enjoy doing and spend all their time in what they do best while at the same time are surrounded by people with various different qualifications which makes their team quite successful in business.

In summary, there are not only those who give orders, but those who give advice to what orders should be given.

Laziness itself is not a virtue; it works well only when is complimented with high intelligence. The very highest-achieving managers usually possess a host of virtues such as thoughtfulness, originality and vision.

This type of Managers, place a very high value on their own time and having the freedom to think things through without being disturbed with tedious chores that many other Managers handle, to keenly demonstrate their competence.

Their brilliance gives them the confidence to be lazy, and their laziness gives them the freedom to find shortcuts to better results through less effort. They are usually selective and insightful at crucial decisions; they do not sweat about small stuff.

Odd title for sure, but it boils down to work smart rather than work hard.

The Most Important Discipline Required for Success

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Leadership is for everyone. If you can breath you can lead.

It is really the single most important discipline required to create success in business.

Leaders are those individuals who do the things that failures aren't willing to do, even though they might not like doing it either. They have the discipline to do what they know to be important and right, versus what's easy and fun.

It's not that leaders don't have a great time, they definitively do.  Because of their ability to create success and lasting positive results, they end up having far more joy and delight that those who do not practice leadership. Few thing generate as much happiness as knowing that you are fully realizing your genius, doing brilliant work and spending your life to the fullest.

Leadership is not only something to do at work, rather is something to practice on your daily activities and life: leadership in our health, in our finances, with our loved ones, within our community and most of all with ourselves (self-leadership) - if you can not lead yourself, you will never be able to lead anyone else around you.

Leaders are those who are content but never satisfied in the sense that they always crave for improvement. They tend to look for improvement in everything possible in a daily basis, relentlessly and with passion.

Leaders are those that realize that each person creates their own destiny. They never let themselves down even in adversity, they never resign to mediocrity or miss opportunities, they never blame others - instead;they are the ones that take responsibility, always look to better themselves, the people around them and society in general. They leave a legacy of success.

Success is created through the performance of a few small daily disciplines that stack up over time to produce achievements far beyond anything you could have ever planned for. Failure on the other hand, is nothing more than the inevitable outcome of a few small acts of daily neglect performed consistently over time.

Anyone can reach success if if they consistently do the right things. Leaders know that trough daily life efforts, the harvest will come - they have faith, discipline and patience. 

Consistency and sustained changed only happens when we shift at an emotional level rather than at a logical level - you want to have it, create it,experience it, enjoy it. The key for leadership is emotion, energy, passion. The more you own your power to make choices, the more powerful your choices become.

 

Awaken you inner leader !