We began to consider three key ingredients to success and successful management. There are always suggestions by those in the company and those who are not in the company as to what is needed to make the company more prosperous. While perhaps all the suggestions may be some help I believe that there are three key ingredients. The previous articles addressed the first two:
1. Commitment to work on a goal.
There is almost unlimited power in a commitment to a goal. Most people today have lost the understanding of the power of a commitment. This is very evident in the realm of the home based business. People sign up on the dotted line, send in the money and two days later they no longer want to be a part of it. These people did not understand that they had made a commitment. They have now set themselves up for one failure after another.
2. Unity among the people.
We have trouble understanding unity. We think unity is where everyone likes my idea. There are times when we definitely need to listen to those who have traveled the road already. But there is also a time when those who join us had some creative ideas that need to be considered. There is nothing threatening about a new idea. Where there is true unity new ideas are welcomed like a big tax return.
3. An effective communication system.
Here again is a simply yet greatly misunderstood principle. We live in a time when communication has been made so accessible that there are times I wish we could away from it. The truth is that the means of communication is what has advanced to the point of invasion. Communication is still trying to work its way out of the Stone Age.
Those of us in our 60s and older have lived through an incredible time period. I remember as a young boy we had a telephone on a party-line. We shared one telephone line with 3 neighbors. We each had our distinctive ring so that we knew when the call was for us. But we all knew when one of us got a call. Problems started arising when 2 or more neighbors needed the phone at the same time. I have no doubt that some reading this article today will think I’m making this up. But in the Stone Age of the telephone this was a very real time period.
We considered it a major advancement when everyone had their own private phone line. When you stop and think about it that situation lasted for about 40 years. Then came the development of the cell phone and the internet. Now I’m waiting for the time when a baby will be born and the first thing they do is give them a telephone number and secondly give them a name.
However, I had better get back on topic. An effective communication system that is necessary for a successful business first and foremost has to do with actually talking to one another and being understood. The demise of countless home based businesses can easily be identified as a poor communication problem.
Unless the product or principle can be clearly stated it is not going to survive in the market. But that is only the first step. Not only do people have to understand what it is being marketed, but if we are going to build a business (home based business) the people joining us must be able to understand how to market the item.
I have been in enough home based businesses to know that just because I understand the product does not mean I understand how to market the product. Effective communication means that the business I join will communicate with me in such a way that I understand and then can apply that understanding in the marketplace.
If you’ll allow me to use an illustration from the Bible the Tower of Babel is the perfect example of all three of these principles. Unlimited organizational power is generated when people have a commitment to work on a goal, are united behind that commitment, and maintain effective communication. God said nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.
How did God shut the project down? Come, let us go down and confuse their language. He disrupted their communication system. The entire project was abandoned within hours. If you can’t talk to one another you cannot accomplish a task. From that time until this day we are struggling to be able to communication effectively with one another. How many projects have been shutdown or abandoned because they couldn’t understand one another? How many fights have broken out because they couldn’t understand the words each was using?
Communication is more than cell phones and internet. Communication is actually understanding each other, working towards a common goal and being committed to completion.
I worked in the corporate world for 15 years - oil & gas taxation, payroll account. The next 27 years have been spent in church ministry. Internet Marketing is allowing retirement. www.jamesfheller.com
