16 Super Decisions in 2016 (continued)

Several months ago, I took a detour in my travels to meet with an old friend who had been super successful in business. He had started in RE as a teenager and is now semi-retired, having built his business to a global RE venture with some 2,400 employees. I wanted to share some of my ideas with him that I was trying to get off the ground, but also I wanted to tap into his experience and learn how an entrepreneur can best reach his goals and dreams.

After several hours of friendly chatter and heavy discussion, my friend looked at me and said, "Andrew, you have the curse of the entrepreneur on you." He explained: "Men who dream and work as we do have very little patience with those who don't or can't or won't quickly catch on, get on board, and produce like we do." Also, he pointed out that many of us entrepreneurs have a hidden insecurity in our personalities that keeps us from developing deeper and stronger relationships with others, especially those with whom we work. I was a little uncomfortable being "psycho-analyzed," but he was correct, and I felt he was putting his finger on a much-needed area for improvement in my life that could significantly help both my personal life as well as my professional life.

He taught me that I must not let my strengths limit my potential. That sounded contradictory to me, but he explained that a person's strengths often become the standard by which he judges every other person, and that people who may be stronger than we are in another area - but not as strong as we are in our areas - can be judged as incompetent and dismissed as unneeded. And then we lose the horsepower that my cost us our power and plans.

He also pointed out that my insecurities could prevent me from hiring strong people, always wanting to have people I can control and who won't question my decisions. But he told me that that is a dangerous weakness that can create unhealthy relationships and will definitely limit my potential.

My friend has given me much to ponder, but along with those suggestions, he gave me several decisions I should consider in building a great team around me. I'll share four with you in this blog:

1. Decide if you want the freedom of total independence or the satisfaction of reaching really big dreams and goals. What I had long-admired with envy about my friend were the huge goals he reached and the amazing success he saw. What he revealed to me in private was the incredible amount of time he spent corralling strong-minded and independent-thinking team members. He compared leading a great team to conducting a great orchestra of brilliant musicians. The conductor may be a talented musician himself, but he can't play IN the orchestra if he is to LEAD the orchestra. And the conductor must decide if he will be a player or a conductor, because conducting requires 100% attention to be sure all the players stay in rhythm and harmony on the same song. The question is do I want to be the best trumpet player I can be and fulfill that passion and gift I have? Or do I want to set down my trumpet for another trumpeter to play it - someone who may not play it as well as I do, thus allowing me to conduct the whole orchestra? Obviously, I can't do both, although I confess that I have tried.

1. You must decide to surround yourself with people who are smarter in their fields than you are. My friend said, "Andrew, you might be the best trumpet player, but you're not the best on all the instruments. No person in history has been the best player on all the instruments. And if you want to conduct a really great orchestra (RE team), you must find the best players in the areas you're not the best."

"Now, the conductor must know enough about each area to lead the team, but he can't expect to be the expert in every field. And even if you think you are, you can't possibly PLAY all the instruments at one time. Sure, we've all seen one-man bands - a guy playing an accordion while beating a drum with his feet and playing a harmonica all at the same time. It is good comedy and may be even slightly entertaining, but it is NOT the Philadelphia Philharmonic Symphony!"

My friend cautioned me that my insecurity will resist looking for and hiring these "experts," but that, truthfully, these would become the team members that would take me to my dreams and purpose. I know RE very well. In some areas, I am considered an "expert." But, I don't know everything, for sure, and I certainly cannot do all that my dreams require of me to reach those dreams. I have to put together a quality team just as you do: Contractors, realtors, bankers/financial investors, attorneys, landscapers, sub-contractors, etc. Plus, the internal staff of secretaries, assistants, etc. All are needed, and I want them to be the best "players" in my orchestra.

1. Help your team players "own" your business. There must be a "buy-in" among the key players of a team - that time when they feel they become part owners, truly responsible for the success/failure of the business and not simply hired hands. This can be done by first creating a culture that welcomes and even insists on opinion and suggestions from each team member. A person MUST believe that what he/she thinks is truly important to the "conductor." Secondly, connecting the team's financial compensation to the growth of the company is huge. They then have great incentive to excel. And their excellence will produce the growth that enriches everyone.

1. Insist on recurrent training. Talk to an airline pilot and you will be struck by the amount of recurrent and continuous training they are required to receive. No wonder air travel is such a safe means of travel. My friend explained how he spent large sums of money on recurrent training for his team, sending them to several of the major university business schools for weeks of training annually. There was push-back initially from these "experts," but after they had experienced the value of the training, there was great buy-in for the idea. Plus, they knew that the boss had their best interests in mind and was committed to helping them become the very best they could become. There simply is no substitute for learning. And if we are not learning, we are becoming stale and dying and becoming antiquated in our methods.

next week we'll look at four more Super decisions for 2016!