Success requires a team

Just like the old saying "it takes a village to raise a child," it takes a team for any business or organization to realize success.  It helps to have star players but for an organization to succeed year after year, it requires a great team with great leadership.

I am a sports fan and a very frustrated one because all of the Cleveland sports teams are suffering right now from bad records and failure.  At one time, our biggest rival in football was the Pittsburgh Steelers.  We love to hate the Steelers in Cleveland.

However, if you take a look at the history and record of the Steelers, you will find an excellent example of what I am talking about.  They have an excellent organization that takes great pride in success as a team.  They manage and optimize every aspect of their organization and thus they have realized great success.

The same is true in business.  It is the overall organization that must be great in order for any aspect of the business to experience year-over-year success.  The top management must be totally behind every facet of the business, behind every employee, and aligned with the goals of every division.

Success requires a team, and that includes ownership, top management, middle management, and every single employee.

Factors That Favor and Factors That Overcome

In his book Outliers, author Malcolm Gladwell carefully discusses many factors that lead to success and some that lead to failure. I suggest that you read the book to get more insight.

However, while I agree with Gladwell that some factors in individuals lives often work as advantages that favor those individuals, persistence, desire, and confidence are factors that can overcome those disadvantages for those people who are unfortunate not to have been born at the right time or may not have had the right breaks or best leadership.

On the other hand, even with the advantages that Gladwell describes, true success is usually only possible when ushered in by persistence, desire, confidence, and hard work. Just having the best timing or being in the right place at the right time is not enough for sustained success. Having those hard work factors in your favor will insure you some kind of success.

Often, success can be measured by balance in your life. You really don't need a lot of advantages to work toward balance. You need persistence, desire, hard work, confidence and other attributes usually associated with success.

Keys to Unlocking Success for You

There are many keys to success. One of them is knowing what your skills are and developing them. Another is having the discipline to stay with it and keep on developing those skills.

It is not enough just to be intelligent or very talented at any one thing. In fact, everyone is talented at something. If you don't agree with that, I suggest that you listen to or read "Now Discover Your Strengths" buy Marcus Buckingham. Everyone is born with talents but they need to be developed and put to use.

I have also discussed the virtues of mentoring. Having a mentor is another key that works directly with having discipline. In addition to having the drive to succeed, you need input from another person or people you can trust. They look at your progress and career from a different perspective.

All of this adds up to staying on track with your goals, dreams, desires, and your career. Take the talent that you have, continue to develop it, and have someone to keep an eye on your progress.

These are just some of the keys to success.

Success

Success does go to those who work hard, play fair, and persist. There is no counter formula to hard work.

If you give your best effort at what you do every day, you will succeed. You will not be stopped by the economy, your competitors, the lack of effort by any other employees of your team or company, or any other source.

All you can affect is your own work. If you give your best effort daily, if you strive to do what you intuitively know to be the right things, you will win.

Let's define for ourself what winning should look like. It is not being the richest, it is not being the most powerful, it is not even always being in first place. It is accomplishing what you set out to do. It is establishing and maintaining stability and peace in your life.

You can do it and it is a daily commitment. Keep in mind to that balance and stability includes recreation and relaxation. Remember to include the right amount of both in your game plan for success.

Let's keep going.

Make Your Difference Positive

Dr. Marting Luther King, Jr. once said, "If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.'"

All too many people are satisfied with medocrity. If that is the case, their difference is negative. Not only do the acheivers make a difference, the mediocre do too. Everyone makes a difference and if you are on a team where everyone is striving to make a positive difference, you are on a winning team.

As Dr. King implied, it doesn't really matter what it is that you do, but it greatly matters how you do it. If you spend every day trying to make a positive difference, you will. If you approach both your work life and personal life with that same zeal for a positive impact, you will achieve great things.

We all need advice

We all need good advice. If you learn something helpful from someone, share it. If you want to improve yourself, follow seek and follow helful advice. If you want to be successful, you can.