Who is Santa Claus?

During his life he’s anonymously given out more than $1.3 million. It’s been a long-held holiday mystery: Who is Secret Santa?

Larry Stewart passed away on January 12, 2007 from esophageal cancer but not before he revealed his identify and passing on his belief in random acts of benevolence.

Mr. Stewart made his millions in cable television and in long-distance telephone services.

His holiday giving started in December 1979 when he was nursing his wounds at a drive-in restaurant after getting fired.

It was the second year in a row he had been fired the week before Christmas.

Turning Tragedy into Opportunity

Soon after getting fired, Mr. Stewart was at a drive in restaurant and came across a car hop: “It was cold and this car hop (waiter or waitress who brings food to people at drive-ins) didn’t have on a very big jacket, and I thought to myself, `I think I got it bad. She’s out there in this cold making nickels and dimes,’” he said.

He gave her $20 and told her to keep the change.

“And suddenly I saw her lips begin to tremble and tears begin to flow down her cheeks. She said, `Sir, you have no idea what this means to me.’”

Stewart was moved and went to the bank that day and took out $200. He then drove around looking for people who could use a lift.

That was his “Christmas present to himself.” He hit the streets each December since.

While Stewart has also given money to other community causes in Kansas City and his hometown of Bruce, Miss., he offers the simple gifts of cash because it’s something people don’t have to “beg for, get in line for, or apply for.”

That was a feeling he came to know in the early ’70s when he was living out of his yellow Datsun. Hungry and tired, Stewart mustered the nerve to approach a woman at a church and ask for help. The woman told him the person who could help was gone for the day, and Stewart would have to come back the next day.

“As I turned around, I knew I would never do that again,” Stewart said.

Over the years, Stewart’s giving as Secret Santa grew. He started a Web site. He allowed the news media to tag along, mostly because he wanted to hear about the people who received the money. Reporters had to agree to guard his identity and not name his company.

His entourage grew over the years, and he began traveling with special elves and training others to be Secret Santas.

The Spirit of Secret Santa is Alive and Growing

Today, Larry Dean Stewart’s loyal Elves and the Secret Santas he trained are building upon the foundation he laid.

A new group of Secret Santas and Elves are very busy this Christmas. They are going coast to coast in selected cities and towns to spread hope this Christmas, giving one hundred dollar bills to the needy.

This year in his honor each one hundred dollar bill will bear the name Larry Stewart Secret Santa.

They will also be training those who have come forward to be a Secret Santa Leader in their community.

Could you be a Secret Santa? Go the Secret Santa Society to learn how.

Also, while you may not be able to pass out $100 dollar bills, how can you make a difference in the life of just one person in your community?

I’d love to hear about it.

Happy Holidays!

Gary

Building Your Bridge

Far too many companies and individuals are focused on the accounting, and the truth is that the accounting system doesn’t really provide you with a lot of useful and relevant information.

This may tweak a few of you the wrong way, but read on before you shoot the messenger.

The reality is that most leaders have gotten more and more precise and sophisticated at measuring less and less of an organization’s TRUE value.

At present, the entire focus of financial analysis is on “the numbers,” despite mounting evidence that they’re the WRONG numbers.

An organization’s most valuable assets are intangible.

Consider the following:

• learning ability
• technological know-how
• proprietary software code
• databases
• market knowledge
• communications networks
• distribution channels
• customer loyalty
• staff morale
• strategic alliance partners
• corporate culture

Yet NONE of these assets are reflected in any balance sheet or profit-and-loss statement.

Innovative leaders need performance measures that are dynamic and forward-looking.

Acquiring these measures will require discovering, capturing, and reinforcing the key strategic and competitive drivers of future performance.

One of the very few management maxims that have stood the test of time is “You get what you measure.”

This being the case, it is unwise to expect strategic performance from organizations that depend on OBSOLETE measurement systems.

Organizations that attempt to build the information infrastructure necessary to compete and win in current economic times must devote considerable energy to devising systems that not only capture the new performance, but actually promote it.

A word of caution, performance measurement, whether strategic or otherwise, has little if any value in and of itself.

Performance measurement exists-or should exist-for one reason only:

TO ENHANCE PERFORMANCE.

No matter how elegant they may appear, performance measures will prove useless if they fail to meet four key stress tests.

To be effective, performance measurement must .

1. Help everyone to identify priorities they should pursue to maximize potential. They must be truly aligned with the strategic goals of the organization.

   CRITICAL POINT HERE — If they are not aligned with the company’s strategic goals then they are USELESS.

2. Focus the majority of your attention on those priorities once they have been identified.
3. Facilitate progress to EVERYONE involved in pursuing the identified priorities.
4. Lead to an observable difference in behavior and performance. This means that they must be consciously reinforced in practice, with both rewards and compensation. Be sure to reward the EXACT behavior you want repeated.

Without these four conditions, performance measurement is a wasteful, counterproductive exercise.

But if these conditions are met, forward looking performance measures can become an indispensable part of your strategic arsenal and in helping you come out of this recession as a winner.

To learn how to “Strategically Reposition” your company in today’s economy, fill out the coaching form on this page and I will personally ring you within 24 hours.

New Rules

The revolution in information and communications technologies has fundamentally and permanently altered the domestic and international business landscape.

One of the most far-reaching consequences of these changes is a massive shift in the competitive balance of power.

For the first time in the history of commerce, five-person boutiques can take on multinational giants and WIN!

In one fell swoop, competition has become more ubiquitous, intense, unpredictable, democratic and, in one word, difficult.

And it is going to get tougher to generate competitive advantage by simply doing the same old things a little bit better.

Technological changes have ushered in an era of radical strategic repositioning.

Competitive advantages and profits will belong to innovators who transcend the existing parameters of competition.

Strategic repositioning forces competitors to play by the new rules of the game, rules that you yourself have largely devised.

By establishing these rules, you knock your competition off balance and create a temporary monopoly over the critical success factors for your industry.

Strategic Repositioning – Three Varieties

1. Create an entirely new industry.

Arguably the purest form of strategic repositioning is to construct an entirely new industry from scratch. But if you’re going to defy conventional wisdom-be committed!

Having a brilliant, timely and powerful business concept is a terrific starting point, but it is not enough to guarantee success.

You must look at the value you are offering and the infrastructure required to bring the concept to life. Trying to impose a radically innovative new concept on an existing infrastructure won’t work.

2. Reinvent how an existing industry operates.

The opportunities for creating new competitive battlegrounds are by no means limited to developing entirely new products or attacking new market segments.

Equally rewarding are the opportunities to those innovative enough to reinvent the way business is done within existing markets and industries.

Inevitably, your new formula will attract imitators. However, he who invents the new game and writes the first set of competitive ground rules usually stakes out a solid first place position; everyone else is relegated to playing catch-up.

3. Set the de facto world standard for an emerging industry that others are creating.

The next best thing to inventing a new industry outright is to create the standards everybody in that industry has to meet-or else.

This trick requires a heavy dose of luck, skill, and timing, but owning the DNA of your industry or market makes you “King (or Queen) of the Hill”-immediately!

Precisely because strategic repositioning goes against the grain of conventional business thinking, it will be increasingly important in both the current and future marketplace.

Leadership will be based on improvement that is not merely continuous and incremental but frequently nonlinear and exponential.

Years ago, much of this improvement was driven by technological change. But as old technologies become commonplace ones, a constant supply of ideas and approaches will be needed to gain competitive advantage.

Rather than slug it out for temporary advantage in well-defined markets, tomorrow’s winners will be creating entirely new industries, opportunities, and competitive space for themselves.

The key issue is simply this: Competing for existing markets is rapidly becoming yesterday’s game.

If you aspire to make any kind of impact in the new world of business you must realize that you are really playing an altogether different game-competing for the future.

The future dictates new rules. If you don’t write them, someone else will!

To learn how to “Strategically Reposition” your company in today’s economy, fill out the coaching form on this page and I will personally ring you within 24 hours.

What's the score... you should know!

If you’re not keeping score, you’re probably getting beat!

If how you play or perform were all that mattered, then why do all sporting activities have some form of scoreboard? The scoreboard is your report card and it tells you and the world that you are winning, losing, or holding your ground.

Keeping score and inspecting your progress is important, not only in determining the ultimate winner of a contest, but also as a measuring device by which a person, team or company can gauge itself against the competition.

Ask yourself this question and others of similar nature, “How are we doing relative to our nearest competitor?

Specific questions on performance measurement are usually met with blank stares, kind of a light’s on but nobody’s home kind of stare. If not that then very vague or non-specific answers soon follow.

If you don’t know the score – you have a better than average chance of being the competitive sacrificial lamb.

Define your goals to be specific.

Because establishing goals is so important, you should put a great deal of time and mental effort into the process. The more specific your vision, the more likely you are to organize yourself around it.

For example if your goal is to “increase business”, you have NOTHING on which to develop an organizational strategy. The statement is too vague, and the time frame open-ended.

If however you say, “I want to increase my personal contribution to revenues by 30 percent in the next 18 months,” then you have begun to shape your vision. You have defined clear goals and set the time frame.

The goal is still a bit fuzzy, though, you can do better. What elements of revenue are within your control? Once you answer this question you can hone your vision even further.

The end result should be like; “MY goal is to close three of the ten prospects I am working on in order to increase my contribution to company revenues by 30 percent in the next 18 months.

Now you have something to sink your teeth into. You have set the goal, clearly defined the vision, and established a reasonable time frame and end result.

From this point on you can break your goal into manageable bites, focusing on each step needed to close the three deals. The process becomes easy because the goal and vision is specific.

The Thinker by Auguste Rodin

Whether for personal or business reasons, underlying any strategic plan and successful initiative is a winning mindset that guides leadership thinking. It can be thought of as being composed of principles or guides.

Most of them have been in existence since ancient times. They are illustrated in the lives and writings of Alexander The Great, Sun Tzu, Caesar, Machiavelli, Napoleon, Patton, Churchill and so on.

Being involved in this field of work for many years, and having worked with thousands of individuals, managers and companies throughout the world, I can say with complete confidence that what follows is the strategic mindset for winning big!

These principles, or what some might call guides, have been reverse
engineered by careful review and reflections arising from my consulting engagements with leaders in a variety of fields.

Their presentation here is skeletal for convenience sake, and they are in no special sequence as each is just as important as the next. However, taken as a whole, they offer a useful checklist and food for thought as to how leaders think.

Whether you are running a family, little league or large corporation, your ability to implement this mindset will allow you to win big at whatever you do.

How Leaders Think – The Mindset for Winning Big

1. Leaders have a clear sense of desired outcomes before acting. They develop a detailed action plan capable of delivering outcomes that will add significant value to a state of affairs.
2. Leaders scope outwards to capture the larger context. Before acting they see how the pieces fit together and visualize all outcomes.
3. Leaders are adaptive to realities and flexible in choice of tactics. They recognize that once action begins the “game board” is fluid offering both new threats and new opportunities.
4. Where possible, leaders try to achieve multiple objectives through singular actions.
5. Leaders always plan a couple of steps ahead. It is said that Napoleon could conceive of seven steps ahead, each one with its potential counteractions by opponents.
6. Leaders anticipate their opponent’s actions and mentally rehearse their responses should those contingencies arise.
7. Leaders have the discipline to remain composed when the unexpected occurs.
8. Leaders try to capitalize on crisis or change, turning them to their advantage.
9. Leaders stay future-focused and take the long view on important decisions.
10. Leaders invent both sequential and parallel actions to accomplish goals.
11. Leaders pick battles that can be won and avoids those that cannot be won. (At least not at an acceptable cost.)
12. Leaders look to supplement their actions with those of others (allies, partners, joint ventures.)
13. Leaders are patient, and move swiftly with a good sense of timing.
14. Leaders act decisively and with conviction when the time to act has come.
15. Leaders are able to scrap or alter plans when information indicates actions are not attaining their intended results.
16. Leaders accept reality as it is, not as they want it to be.
17. Leaders do not signal any punches, unless in the form of a ploy.
18. Leaders know in advance what can be conceded or lost and what is essential to retain, preserve, and gain.
19. Leaders do not bluff when the stakes are critical.
20. Leaders seek and exploit opponent’s weaknesses, oversights and mistakes.
21. Leaders maintain forward momentum. They focus on moving north toward their goals.
22. Leaders use surprise to their advantage.
23. Leaders use speed as a weapon and create competitive whiplash.
24. Leaders are disciplined and hold resources in reserve should their need arise.
25. Leaders form alliances with opponents of his opponents.
26. Leaders learn their opponent’s strengths and weaknesses.
27. Leaders are aggressive in pursuing goals and ready to move on to the next.
28. Leaders do not rest on old glories, they keep their teeth and competitive instincts razor sharp.
29. Leaders tap diverse points of view in planning. They seek out multiple viewpoints and considers for strength and validity.
30. Leaders assure that everyone knows their roles and are equipped with the resources to contribute.
31. Leaders maintain a state of readiness. They are prepared to strike fast when the opportunity presents itself.
32. Leaders monitor activities and results in the operating environment. They do not let the grass grow under their feet when it comes to measurements.
33. Leaders use “what if” speculation to stretch thinking in the direction of opportunities and possibilities.
34. Leaders have a good sense of what may be possible to achieve in the prevailing state of “politics.” They are masters at the art of what’s possible.
35. Leaders study the logic of the opponent’s tactics with an eye toward determining what their ultimate end purposes may be.
36. Leaders make use of trial balloons. They engage in feint actions in order to test reactions.
37. Leaders prefer taking the offensive. They plan thoroughly and act with boldness and a strong sense of confidence.

These are some tested aspects of thinking employed by leaders to gain and hold strategic advantage. They can serve as a checklist when your responsibilities include thinking strategically.

Apply these guidelines to your own personal or business strategic plan and I assure you that you’ll be on your way to a fast start and more important, big wins!

Leadership

To be successful, an organization must have a very strong leader who’s willing to make choices and define the trade-offs. There’s a striking relationship between really good strategies and really strong leaders.

The critical job for a leader is to provide the discipline and the glue that sustains the key goals and strategy over time.

Another way to look at it is that the leader has to be the guardian of trade-offs. In any organization, ideas pour in every day – from employees with suggestions, from customers asking for things, from suppliers trying to sell things.

There’s all this input, and a good share of it is INCONSISTENT with the organization’s goals and strategy.

Great leaders are able to enforce the trade-offs. At the same time, great leaders understand that there’s nothing rigid or passive about goals and strategy — it’s something that a company is continually getting better at — so they can create a sense of urgency and progress while adhering to a clear and very sustained direction.

A leader also has to be vigilant by making sure that EVERYONE understands the company’s goals and strategy.

The most fundamental purpose of strategy is to inform each team member of the many thousands of things that get done in an organization every day, and to make sure that those things are all aligned in the same basic direction.

If people in the organization don’t understand the company’s focus, how the company is supposed to be different, how it creates value compared to its rivals, then how can they possibly make all of the myriad choices they have to make in order to be achieving goals?

Every salesman has to know the strategy — otherwise, he won’t know whom to call on. Every engineer has to understand it, or she won’t know what to build. Every person is important, therefore everyone and everything counts!

The best leaders are teachers, and at the core of what they teach is goal setting, strategy, and implementation. They go out to employees, to suppliers, and to customers, and they repeat, “THIS IS WHAT WE STAND FOR!” So everyone understands it. This is what leaders do.

In great companies, strategy becomes a cause. That’s because a strategy is about being different. So if you have a really great strategy, people are fired up: “We’re not just another run of the mill company. We’re bringing something new to the world and this is it!”

People follow the leader and YOU are the leader!

Vince Lombardi - Legendary Coach and Leader

Leadership is all about one enduring quality: character. Popularity is temporary; change is often unpredictable; and interest rates always fluctuate. The one true constant is a person’s disposition—their character.

Leaders who possess good character are those who — through repeated good acts — achieve an appropriate balance of the virtues in his life. Therefore, like a successful athlete, the virtuous person plays a consistently good game. As Aristotle rightly noted, ‘we are what we repeatedly do.’

A company or team’s underlying spirit is created from the top. If an enterprise conveys a great spirit, its top people display a positive attitude. If it decays, however, it does so because the top rots; just as a fish rots from the head.

Character is shaped by drive, competence, and integrity. While many leaders possess the drive and competence necessary to lead, far too many lack the moral compass. These types of leaders tend to be self-serving, and sabotage the spirit of an enterprise. As these people assume greater power and authority, it works to create an Achilles heel of pride and arrogance. This serves only to erode the trust of followers.

People have an indisputable, divine right to expect and demand good character and exemplary conduct from their leaders.

The true test and strength of an enterprise is not to be found in a company’s products or services, but in the character of its leaders. It serves as the conscience of the community.

Leadership is exercised through character; personality sets the example and is imitated by others in the organization. Character is not something one about which can fool people about. A lack of character will “rat out” your true intentions, no matter how hard you attempt to cover them up.

Good leaders have a strong moral fiber and sound ethics; they do not lie, cheat or steal. Ethical behavior is not easy; but it is essential to effective leadership. Ethical leaders are self-confident; not self-centered. There is no gray area when it comes to character and integrity — it’s foundational. With it, a committed team can produce outstanding results; without it, there is no respect or moral authority to execute.

So, are you the kind of person that others want to follow? The answer to that question depends on your character. A strong leader sets a strong example. No one, under any circumstances, should ever be appointed to or accept a leadership role unless they are willing to have his or her character serve as the model for others to emulate!