I’m often asked to define the difference between businesses that are successful and businesses that fail. My initial response is that successful businesses always practice accountability with their employees and managers. However, in order to be successful, it’s important to understand that success is a far side of failure.
There is a newspaper columnist by the name of Harvey Mackay, and Harvey stated that many humans are afraid to take a risk.
- They’re afraid to step outside their box;
- They’re afraid that they are going to continue to fail;
However, according to Harvey Mackay, in order to triple your success ratio, you might have to triple your failure rate.
The founder of IBM was Thomas J. Watson, and he was the first President of IBM. He stated that, “Failure is a teacher – a harsh one, perhaps, but the best . . . that’s what I have to do when an idea backfires or a sales program fails”. What he was saying is you have to put failure to work for you. You can’t be discouraged by failure, because you can learn from it. So, go ahead and make mistakes, make all you can because that is where you will find success; on the other side of failure.
I personally believe that a positive attitude is one of the primary prerequisites for changing your personal and company’s financial destiny;
- Failure can be one more step on the road to success; but
- As an individual, owner or manager, you have to turn failure around into a positive direction.
Failure can push you harder to succeed; failure can strengthen your determination to overcome obstacles; failure can make you braver in the face of opposition;
- Failure can help you learn what you need to do in order to succeed;
- Failure can teach you what your limitations are and what your strengths are; and
- Failure can encourage you to change your strategy.
How many times have you heard, “Failure is not an option”? Failure happens; but when you are responsible for the people working for you, you have to do everything you can to guard against failure. As a manager and owner, you need to devote yourself to avoiding crucial failures in your leadership.
I’ve often stated that planning is a part of establishing goals and objectives. You need a plan: you need to be able to execute the plan, and you need to set time frames to accomplish your plan. However, at the same time, don’t get caught up in strategy and planning so that you forget to talk to the people who work for you. Most of the time, they know more than you about how things work at the ground level, and their insights can be invaluable.
As an owner or manager, in many instances, it is extremely important to delegate appropriately so you don’t become overwhelmed and lose sight of the big picture.
When you employ people, look for people who can perform areas of your responisbility as well as, or better than you. As an owner or manager, your role is complicated enough without adding tasks that your employees should handle. Many times I’m asked how much risk should I take in order to grow my business, and that is a loaded question.
If you play it safe, your organization is never going to grow. At the same time, that doesn’t mean that you should go out and attempt to conquer the world without a plan, or the proper employee structure. You must be willing to commit resources wherever you’ve got a reasonable expectation of success.
In my practice, I explain to my employees and customers that it’s important that they also take care of their issues physically and mentally. If you don’t take care of yourself, if you don’t eat well or exercise and take some time off, it’s very difficult to continually confront the challenges that face you in the trucking industry. Pushing yourself to the brink will only increase everyone’s frustration.
According to Harvey Mackay, “Falling in love with authority can be your downfall”. You’re the boss, but you’re not a monarch ruling by birthright, so don’t rely on your title or the volume of your voice to get employees to do what you want. Base your decisions on your experience and judgment, and be willing to listen to another’s point of view, instead of assuming that only you know what’s right. Overnight sensations are rare indeed. Most of us have to plug away, pay our dues, and have a few failures before we can begin to imagine real success.
The best advice I can offer owners or managers of trucking companies is, associate with winners. Create your own unique group of people who will believe in you and will encourage you when you’re going through your challenges.
The fundamentals of success comes down to four things:
- Find an area you are suited to play in;
- Have the courage to take action and get started;
- Have the courage to endure, persevere, to go all the way when the going gets tough; and
- Have the attitude that you are willing to do whatever it takes for as long as it takes, to get to your objective.
In closing, there is no clear road to success, other than trying things that may not work, but learning from your experiences.
“Failure isn’t complete unless you say it is.”