To-Do Lists, Tactics, Strategies and Going to the Moon
Companies, governments and other organizations are typically organized in the following way: At the top of the pyramid are people whose job is to strategize for the organization. These are the people who set the entire tone for a group and define what it is supposed to accomplish.
- In the case of a war, for example, the President might declare that an overall strategy is to extinguish terrorists in Afghanistan, to make the world a safer place.
- In the case of an organization, a strategy may be to legalize something that is currently illegal.
- In the case of a company, a strategy may be to create a product that dominates a given sector.
Every group needs to have a strategic objective that is promoted by its leaders if it plans to survive in the long-term. “Without a vision the people perish.” The reason [Read more]
Why the Best Executives are So Highly Paid
The higher I have risen in my career, the more criticism and the more obstacles I have faced. In today’s world, if you lay off an employee, fire someone, or make any other potential decision that upsets people you will face incredible scrutiny. Former employees will go on blogs and criticize you and your leadership style. You will be attacked by many people. This is something that has happened to every leader and every organizer throughout the ages. The leaders of companies, organizations and religions are subject to incredible criticism and attacks by virtue of the position they are in. In some countries, the leaders are assassinated. Anyone who organizes groups of men and women, whether it is a country, a religion, or a company, will face criticism and pressures that the average working man and woman simply do not face. When you go to the worst neighborhoods in any city in America you will find areas where there is rampant unemployment–people are living on the street, and where drugs, prostitution and murder rates are all high. The people you will find in these areas are those who are unable to follow orders and to successfully work for others, for the most part. They are people without jobs. When you drive out of the ghetto you will find average, middle class and working class neighborhoods, where you will pass countless rows of houses, in which the televisions flicker each night. Inside each of these homes is a man who goes to an average job each day, follows orders and gets paid. He lives much better than the man in the ghetto, and his ability to follow orders and work in an organized system is rewarded. He gets a roof over his head and a job that brings him a steady paycheck. The better the area, the more likely you will find men who are incredibly skilled in following orders, and in addition to following orders, they are usually in positions where they are giving orders–and are highly skilled in doing this. The better middle class neighborhoods will contain doctors, lawyers and other high level professionals, who have gone to school and learned to follow orders and procedures properly. These neighborhoods may also contain highly skilled laborers. The best neighborhoods will contain the upper level managers. Again we are talking about highly skilled people. Then, in every city–as there has always been, you will find homes that are gigantic and have gates and other amenities that boggle the mind. These are the homes that are lived in by the wealthiest men. Some of these homes are so fantastic that the average man cannot even imagine setting foot inside them, much less living inside. These are typically not the homes of the men who follow orders, or are skilled in following orders. Instead, these are the men who are mostly skilled at giving orders, creating procedures and getting incredible amounts of work done through hundreds, if not thousands, of people. The most successful men, or women become this way because of the amount of work they can accomplish, and often the number of people they can get to do all the work that needs to be done. The man who shovels a ditch each day is only affecting the dirt in front of him. He is paid accordingly. The man who supervises a group of ditch diggers is paid more because he is able to ensure that more work gets done by a group. The man who manages the group that supervises the group of ditch diggers is paid even more. And so on. The more skilled the executive, the more he is able to control, and the more work he is able to get accomplished. This requires an understanding of people, the environment, and the economy, and it involves making numerous decisions and calculations whilst taking every factor into account each day. One of the most fascinating questions that I have heard before is why do certain executives in major corporations earn so much money. When you see a large company like General Electric, Home Depot, Disney, Apple and so forth, you will generally find Chief Executive Officers who are earning millions and sometimes tens of millions of dollars per year. It may seem hard for you to believe that someone’s efforts are actually worth $50,000,000 a year; however, there is a reason these people are paid so much, which is very easy to see. Nevertheless, throughout my entire life I have heard numerous people complain about the high salaries that top level executives receive. These complaints keep up year after year, but the salaries of the top executives [Read more]
Help and Promote Expansion
Whenever I speak to other business owners and ask them how they are doing, one thing I hear over and over is the following: “Things are going well and we are expanding.” In fact, I hear this statement so often it is difficult to believe. It is as if the people believe that the only sign of a successful business is if it is expanding. The funny thing about this is that I get this response even when I know the opposite is really what is occurring. Companies state they are expanding even when they are laying people off. [Read more]
How to Be a Good Manager
Among the many interrelated problems that can occur in an economy, are people having not enough work, not enough holidays, not enough benefits, and of course–not enough pay. As disruptive and problematic as these issues may become to people, hands down the most severe problem is when there are no jobs available at all. Companies and organizations are all out to survive and the worst thing that can happen is a company or organization finding it can no longer survive. When a company can no longer survive, the jobs disappear with it, which is the [Read more]
Believe in the Possibilities
Most people in the job market need something else even more than they need a job. The same is generally true for people that are unhappy with their career paths. Contrary to what many of these people may believe, what they need in order to cure their misery is actually something far, far different from a mere job change. Last night I was walking through the Forum Shops Mall in Caesars Palace and I could not help but notice something that is probably the same in malls all across America. There are young men around 15-18 [Read more]
Move Towards the Light
There is a story I heard some time ago about a man named Rabbi Akiva, who lived in Palestine. He was considered an extremely good person and also a sage. He became the greatest scholar of his time (he lived in the second century) by his consistency. He attended school later in life, at age 40, and it was at this same age of 40 that he became a ba’al teshuba (a Jew who returned to traditional Judiasm). Prior to that time, it is said he actually hated the Jewish sages. Following the [Read more]
The Danger of Judging Others
When I was growing up in Grosse Pointe, a suburb outside of Detroit, I lived on a street where all of the other families were married, and my mother was the only single mother on the street. At some point it became clear to me that the other families in the neighborhood did not approve of the fact that my mother was single. Our next door neighbors, for example, did not particularly like living next door to a single woman. One time I was doing some work on my mother’s front lawn and the father [Read more]
The Greater Your Purpose, the Greater the Obstacles You Will Face
Several years ago I had a girlfriend who had an older sister who was nothing short of incredible. She was a world class swimmer and had set countless records in the state. She had times in swimming that would easily have qualified her for the Olympics, and she was planning on going to the Olympic trials in one year. In addition to this, she had been taking college level course in high school (called Advanced Placement courses) since she was a freshman, and had gotten the best score possible (all “5s”) on all the exams. To [Read more]
Order and Disorder and Your Career
Every single person, place, or thing that you encounter follows these laws, which present and repeat themselves time and time again. In fact, both order and disorder are good things because they can be used to lead to great improvement in our personal lives and in society. How you make order and disorder work for you will in large part determine your success and failure in life and in your career. A few years ago a very intelligent friend of mine, an attorney, came over to my house and started telling me about what a [Read more]
Change Your Reactions
When you see a fight occurring between any two people (or groups of people), it is always the case that one side believes it is right about something and that the other side is therefore wrong. It could be a disagreement over a political or territorial issue, a religious belief, or something else. Countries take sides about one issue or another and entire wars commence and continue for generations–based on one country believing it is right and the other is wrong. When you pick up any newspaper you will see endless stories of conflict. [Read more]
