Dear {FirstName},

We hope you've been enjoying your Monday Morning Motivator. If you've received this issue for the first time - welcome aboard! It only takes a couple of minutes to start your week off right with the MMM! Be encouraged by the success or great ideas of others in your business community. The MMM has community of 34.262 subscribers.

Beginning With The End in Mind

Happy Easter Monday, this week we wanted to share some motivation and practical advice from, You've Got To Read This Book. This is a book about many successful people from all walks of life sharing their personal stories and what single book has had the biggest impact on their lives and careers. The following is from Maynard Webb, former CEO of eBay.

Maynard Webb has a distinguished record of technology and business management achievements during his career of more than 20 years. Prior to joining eBay, Maynard was a senior vice president and chief information officer at Gateway,Inc, a Fortune 250 leader in computing technology, where he contributed to Gateway's rapid expansion and Internet-enabled business operations. He has also worked at Bay Networks and IBM.

In 1993 I was trying to lead my first large organization - a team of a couple hundred people. Although I had been in middle management before, this was my first executive position and I was charting my way through fairly turbulent waters: The previous guy had been fired, his team was upset and somewhat junior, we had lots of things to accomplish. What was worse, I didn't think we had all the principles and guidlines we needed to have in place in the organization. 

I knew how I wanted to lead, but I was still learning to inspire others to take action. Sometimes I would dictate what had to be done, but this didn't seem to motivate anyone to do it on their own. I was showing them how I did it, but I wasn't teaching them how they could do it. At the time, I simply didn't know how to express my vision in a framework that others could easily internalize and use.

Plus, when I looked around, I often had the unsettling feeling that some of the other executives didn't share my vision or my values. This came to a head when an important decision had to be made that would affect a large number of employees. I was uncomfortable with the way the decision was being handled.

I stewed about the situation for weeks and finally, one Friday afternoon, I talked about the problems surrounding the decision with a colleague who was also a personal friend. I knew he was having a difficult time with the same issue. He told me he had just read a book that had deeply affected him, and he recommended I read it, too. This was in the days before the BlackBerry and the Palm Pilot, so I wrote down the title in my day planner: The 7 Habbits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen Covey. 

The very next morning, I went to the bookstore and bought Covey's book. It was a Saturday, so as usual, I was spending the day with my family. Between driving the kids to baseball games, going to fast-food places to grab a meal, and hanging out together at home, I grabbed moments here and there to read the book. I found Covey's material tremendously engaging and inspirational. Throughout the day, I felt moved to read things out loud to my wife and talk with her about them.

One of the first chapters in the book, "Beginning With The End in Mind," switched a light on in me. Covey asks, "When you leave this world, how do you want to be remembered?" I immediately found a piece of paper and did one of the exercises: writing down what I wanted carved on my tombstone. It was exhilarating to think in such terms.

The next thing that really hit me was Covey's model that lays out the framework of urgent versus nonurgent and important versus nonimportant tasks. Action items can be classified into four different groups, or quadrants:

1 - Urgent (time-sensitive) and important
2 - Nonurgent and important
3 - Urgent and nonimportant
4 - Nonurgent and nonimportant

I saw that quadrant 2 activities, nonurgent but important, were often passed over as people scrambled to get the urgent activities - both important and nonimportant - accomplished.

The technology field is filled with people who confuse "action for traction." An "everything is urgent" energy propels most people through their days. You can be busy and exhausted, and feel good because you are getting so much done - yet totally lose sight of what's important.

The average tenure for most chief information officers is between two to three years, so there is a tendency for those folks to try to do the things that are immediate and not take on the big things that are really needed. They make people happy in the short term but end up taking the company off the edge off a cliff. I saw that Covey's quadrants provided a way to keep the big picture alive in one's everyday activities - at whatever level the person was working at the company.

This idea wasn't totally new to me. Even before reading Covey, I knew how to shut out the noise and do the things that mattered most. I think it's in my core DNA; it's just how I've always operated. But as a younf executive, I was frustrated because I thought everyone should understand this concept and do it naturally. I didn't value the process of building a context for people.

I finished the book that night. I immediately decided to commit to using the tools myself in whatever way I could. But what excited me most was Covey's framework of priorities. It was a clearly laid out formula I could use to inspire others to do these things for themselves.

The next day I reflected on the best way to bring this information to the rest of the company. I had once worked for a boss who made us read a book every week and then report on it. We had to implement the author's practices the next day. I didn't want to force-feed the material to my staff in that way, so I made a list of people to talk about it casually.

On Monday morning, I "socialized it," meeting with people one-on-one to see if Covey's ideas resonated with them. I'd say, "Hey, I was struggling with this, and in this book I read, there was a principle that really seemed to help." I'd explain the principle and ask, "What do you think about that?" Most people responded positively as they saw how it pertained to their own situation. Over time, people began picking up The 7 Habbits on their own. Instead of being required reading, it simply spread from person to person by word of mouth.

In fact, during my tenure at that company, a large number of the staff ended up implementing Covey's ideas. As a consequence, the spirit of the team was high and we pulled off some major miracles. Unfortunately, I was at an early stage in my management cycle and made the mistake of allowing that enthusiasm and loyalty to be tied to me personally, rather than the company. So when I left, many of the employees left, too. I've made a point of never letting that happen again. I make sure that employees know that they don't need me to succeed; they can implement Covey's principles in any setting and get the results they want.

Reading The 7 Habbits of Highly Effective People changed the way I operated, both personally and professionally. It cemented my trust in my own instincts and gave me an effective method of sharing this valuable information with others. Today, I still take time out, usually on Sundays, to set my quadrant 2 goals and commit to getting them met for the coming week. And "Beginning With The End in Mind" is the one principle that has guided my life more than any other.

In my "fireside chats" with my team at eBay, I talked about sitting on a park bench 20 years from now, when none of us will have titles and it won't matter what positions we held. "When people see you," I ask, "do they come up and give you a hug? Or do they run the other way?" We discuss how that's all tied to beginning with the end in mind.

I still work at these things myself. I have to, because by nature I'm driven -- a perfectionist who is never satisfied. Covey's principles have helped me learn how to enjoy my life more, as well as accomplish more. My big picture -- what I want written on my tombstone -- Hasn't changed much since that Saturday in 1993 when I first read Covey's book and was moved to write it down: Maynard Webb : He made the world  a better place .... and had fun doing it!

What will you write?

Have a great week unless you choose otherwise.

Drago

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Success Profile

This week's success story is Melanie Alsager and her team at Sunshine Coast Health Center.

Sunshine Coast Health Center officially opened on the 15th of March, 2004, as a 16-bed drug and alcohol rehabilitation facility designed exclusively for men. Original ownership saw the need for privately-funded addiction rehabilitation and had the land, buildings and experience in residential group care to make it possible. The first two years were difficult but, over time, referring health professionals and the general public took notice of the benefits of an intimate, male-only facility that offered an extended stay (longer than 28 days) in an exceptional setting.

Today, Sunshine Coast Health Center continues to combine the basics of recovery with the latest in innovative addiction therapies, visit www.sunshinecoasthealthcenter.ca for more details. 

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