What Separates the Best from the Rest?

Fact:  The people of Canada eat more doughnuts per capita than the people of any other nation or political territory.

Chicken or the egg?  Is this because there is a Horton Hears a Who on every corner — or is the Horton’s there because of the demand?

(Good service project for someone!)

• Is this good enough?  Are we happy with these results?  Minnesota’s high school graduation rate is about 83%.  (Minneapolis Tribune)
• It’s almost at the tipping point, 49%
  • Nationally, the number of people who report never or rarely attending formal church (synagogue/ mosque) services is at 49%. (Household Pulse, 2024)
  • There is a range, of course, from 40% throughout the Bible belt and Utah — and then 60% and greater throughout New England and the Pacific Northwest.
  • What would John Winthrop or John Eliot think; more importantly, how would they have acted?
• Why did this take so long?  It just seems like such a natural fit.
  • Jesse Ventura is partnering with another company to manufacture, market, and sell his own cannabis edibles line.  (Ibid.)
  • What do you suppose it will be called?  Guesses?
  • I remember seeing him as the very last float at about noon in a July 4, 1999 parade — and the people mobbed him, just mobbed him like he was The Beatles.
• Five Western states, plus Vermont, have the most number of female municipal office holders (40%+)
  • Whereas Nebraska and Mississippi have the fewest (<20%)  (Rutgers, 2024)
• “Your environment significantly impacts your productivity.”  (Sinclair and a few thousand other forensic psychologists)
  • And further, a messy desk, an uninspiring office, or having your mobile phone easily accessible are great examples of environments harmful to productivity.
  • If you desire productivity and focus, you must be ruthless with your environment.
  • People don’t have enough willpower to reject all the temptations clamoring for attention.
  • Remove them from your environment to make the (right) choices easier.
  • (Our take:  You need one pen, one, and you don’t need to keep aligning it with other things in your environment.  Make that call!  Better yet, go see a customer.)
  • The biggest tip we can give you — and help you with:  FOCUS on what’s most important as you pursue your vision.
• Continuing from last week, the following excerpts are from the A+ book, CEO Excellence… (Dewar, Keller, Malhotra, 2022)
  • … they uncovered the mindsets, approaches, and practices that informed leadership styles and delivered powerful results.
  • What separates the best from the rest?
    • “In operations, if a machine stops working, you say, “Why?”  Well, the engine burnt out.  “Why?”  Because it overheated.  “Why?”  Because it didn’t get enough ventilation.
    • “Why?”  Because it was too close to the wall.
    • So, we actually move the machine away from the wall after learning the root cause.
  • Imagine you get chosen to lead an organization… it would be easy to have a mindset that says, “OK, discretion is the better part of valor here… first, do no harm.”
    • The best of the best did not have that mindset; they had the opposite mindset, which was, “Be bold, fortune favours the bold.”
    • They were consistently considering, “How do we take the next step, that change in performance?”
    • “Be bold” was the mindset that really separated the best from the rest.
  • Also, “We’re going to put the same level of rigor and discipline into the ‘soft’ stuff that we put into our financial and operational work.”
    • They found ways to do that — because they had the mindset.
  • As for mobilizing leaders:  The best of the best considered dynamics.
    • They thought less about mechanics and more about dynamics… people showing up as thermostats, not thermometers.
    • “It’s easy to show up and report what’s going on, in the way of a thermometer, but to actually DO things that change the outcome is what you need in your team.
    • Are people showing up as we vs. me?
  • On the Board:  “My job as CEO is to help the Board help the business.” vs. a focus on legal stuff or financial stuff…
  • On stakeholders:  “Start with the WHY rather than the who, what, where, when, how…”  Why gets to the real message and the one most wanted/ needed.
  • Personal effectiveness — and this is a big one:  The best of the best did NOT have the mindset of, “I need to anything that needs to be done around here.”
    • But rather:  “I need to do what only I can do as the CEO and with the capabilities I have.”
    • Dig deeper as opposed to getting spread thin.  Do more of what only you can do — and do it better.  (Ibid.)