Many a time I'm with professional associations, organisations or executive leadership and declare, "You have to become comfortable with and promote successful failure within your people and make it a part of your organisational culture."  "Ric, failure isn't an option here at Acme." That may be true if you're a: 

• Surgeon
• Explosives expert
• Deep sea diver
• Astronaut

Or, perhaps, caught in the grip of extreme poverty. I completely understand that in those circumstances there is no room for error. But for the general masses like you and I, there's a space that allows us latitude. In business failure is hardly ever fatal. There's no excuse for making the same mistakes repeatedly. But, if someone says they're not making mistakes one of three factors hold true:

1. They're not attempting anything extraordinary.
2. They ARE failing but don't realise it.
3. They're telling untruths.

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Ric Willmot
Improving Organisational Performance
Providing Strategy Consulting & Mentoring

 

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Ric Willmot
Improving Organisational Performance
Providing Strategy Consulting & Mentoring

There are two LinkedIn Groups that are facilitated by Ric Willmot. You’re invited and welcome to join these groups.

The first is: Executive Wisdom.

This group is needed to enhance and improve the business and skills of owners, executives, management and solo practitioners of all industry types around the world. This will provide opportunities for members to globally connect and do business around the world with like minded business people. The purpose is to establish a community of colleagues, contemporaries and peers without rank, whose members learn from each other on a ongoing and enduring basis.



The second is: Business Development for Recruiters.

Being a member of this group will not teach you how to be a better recruiter. However, you will engage in discussions on how to market, grow and catapult your professional practice to extraordinary results no matter what the economy is doing. You will be able to discuss how to attract and acquire clients; expand business; build referral systems; create next level marketing; develop your fundamental value proposition; evaluate intelligent pricing strategies specifically for your business; and grow sales and profits fast!

 

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Ric Willmot
Improving Organisational Performance
Providing Strategy Consulting & Mentoring

Last week I wrote in my Friday Redux that we need to Allow Time to Notice.

On the weekend at a friend’s barbeque afternoon, I was asked how I was able to continually generate ideas, thoughts, solutions and if it is hard to do. One person even commented that I must spend an inordinate amount of time on such matters.

Actually the opposite is true. We need to allow the Muse to whisper in our ear.

Doug King (the poet) said: “Learn to pause … or nothing worthwhile will catch up to you”.

What problem, issue or project are you working on that could benefit from a pause? Find your little piece of paradise, pull up a seat and admire the vista.

 

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Ric Willmot
Improving Organisational Performance
Providing Strategy Consulting & Mentoring

An architect designed and built a collection of office buildings surrounding a central green. When the construction was concluded, the landscape contractors asked where the sidewalk paths were to be laid.

“Just lay out and plant the grass solidly between all buildings.”

At the end of the first summer season the new lawn was tracked with trodden trails between the buildings. These trails twisted in easy curves and were sized appropriately according to the traffic flow.

In the autumn, the architect simply paved the trails. Not only did the trails have a design beauty, they responded directly to user-desires.

Sometimes we tend to force things in business without allowing time to notice what the environment is showing us.

Are there areas where you may be able to take your foot off the accelerator to not only admire the vista but recognise what it’s showing you? What are you forcing that you really don’t need to or shouldn’t?

Don’t force it, relax and wait to see what your customers are telling you about where they want to go.

 

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Ric Willmot
Improving Organisational Performance
Providing Strategy Consulting & Mentoring

Extraordinary business breakthroughs can be elicited by intelligent questions.

1. Who and what are your targets? Do you have any unique targets of focus that share certain common characteristics?
2. What do your targets need and want? What outcomes and results are they seeking?
3. Where will you find these targeted buyers?
4. Who or what influences your targeted buyers? What’s their ecosystem? — People or places that influence how they think, what they do, and how or what they buy?
5. How do your targeted buyers want to engage with professionals like you? How do they like to interact that makes them most comfortable?

It is understood we all want answers; my challenge for you is to seek the best questions.

 

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Ric Willmot
Improving Organisational Performance
Providing Strategy Consulting & Mentoring

 

Power your business to better results with Ric Willmot’s Five Keys:

1. Keep raising the bar – be innovative, focus on growth rather than cost-cutting or problem fixes, and expect more of yourself and those in your employ.

2. Always work towards results and outcomes – being busy doesn’t make you good, producing results does; means are less important than ends.

3. Empowering people is positive – power does not corrupt but powerlessness creates bureaucracy and roadblocks to positive productivity.

4. People believe what they see – influence is more likely through being an exemplar more than hanging motivational quotes on the walls.

5. Perception informs your reality – your perceptions may not necessarily be fact but they do inform your sense of what is real … to you. Walk in the other person’s shoes to get a sense of what may appear real to them.


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Ric Willmot
Improving Organisational Performance
Providing Strategy Consulting & Mentoring