Global Leadership Summit 2011 – Session 2A -Len Schlesinger “Action Trumps Everything”

Global Leadership Summit 2011 – Session 2A -Len Schlesinger “Action Trumps Everything”

It can be simplified:

1.Find out your customers

2.Find out what they want

3.Give it to them

We are currently “Here” and need to get “There.”

The Martin Luther King “I have a Dream Speech” is a vision that people watch to see how they can have a vision just as compelling and articulate. But, MLK spent 3 to 4 years before that working on that vision.

You can't get “there,” without being clear about aspects of “Here” that are unacceptable.

There are lots of issues “Here”: Unemployment, poverty, unequal education, malnutrition in the world, violence and destruction, inadequate political answers to the issues at hand. What am I going to do about it?

Believe in the future by creating it first.

Entrepreneurship goes a long way to get there.

Trying to predict the future isn't something easy to do. Many entrepreneurs don't do anything too risky or the big idea that nobody else knows. Many times they are decisive, egotistical at times. It is lots more than technology based startups.

Generations: first creates, second enjoys, third destroys

How do we overcome that generational approach. The half life of the fortune 25 is only a few years. In order to stay vital, business models need to change. You need to reinvent yourself 3 to 5 years in your career.

Peter Drucker says “most of what you hear about entrepreneurship is all wrong, it's not in the genes, it can be learned.”

Quote (Missed the owner): We are all entrepreneurs, only too few of us get to practice it.

Don't look at your limitations, just realize that serial entrepreneurs are successful and you can be too. Just realize that everything you learned was based on cause and effect and predictability. This works well when we can extrapolate the past to predict the future. What do they say at the end of financial vehicles “Historical results don't predict the future.” Well, we're in a new world. Change is the new norm.

We start to become paralyzed. In 1921 Univesity Frank Knight talked about risk which could be objectively managed contrasted and the unpredictible future. So, since you can't predict, what is available to you? Act! Yes, do something.

Example: You're Indiana Jones. You're stuck in a hole in the dark and need to get out. Thinking about it doesn't get you out, you need to act.

1. Take Small steps with what you have at hand

2. Limit Risk

3. Build off what you find from taking that step

4. Have some friends and resources standing by to help

So, what do you care about. Then, looking at your ability to accept risk, what is the first step?

Instead, usually what we do is to look at what others are doing and do what they are doing.

Once you're taken the step, look to see where you're at. The bankers look at risk, but since we're in a world of an unknown future, we realize that we just count what we spent to get here as lost cost. Now, look around and enroll people to help know what you've done and where you are. What have you learned.

What prevents us from doing this? Two things:

1. We get caught up in worrying about “what do I want to do.” Stop worrying about what you want to do and start working on what to do next.

2. We are also concerned about failure. What do we do with people who fail? They disappear. We need to look at failure as a learning experience. The failure rate is around 60% in the business world. Failure doesn't mean “Game over,” it means “try again with experience.” You probably learned something that nobody else knows.

Each steps results in learning, experience with others.

1. Know what you want

2. Stop obsessing about what you need, start what you have

3. Build with what you have

4. Take steps with what you have to play with

Small wins are how we solve problems

Bring others with you, remain flexible in what you want and how you do it.

Keep trying over and over. With action trumping everything, you get more “at bats” which increases chances of success.

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For more information on the Leadership Summit and Ocean Grove (“God's Square Mile on the Jersey Shore”) where their mission of Spiritual Birth, Growth and Renewal is lived out in community, visit my earlier post:

http://henrywill4.blogspot.com/2011/08/info-on-leadership-summit-im-attending.html

You'll also find links there to other great bloggers and tweeters on the conference