Devoted to Managers and those that seek to improve their management skills

In reading a post by Curt Rosengren today, some comments he made helped me recall something I had learned long ago that we always need to keep as part of our makeup if we are to be successful managers.

He comments:

"I think that is one of the things that is missing from so many self-help books. Reality doesn't stop because you've finished the book. It keeps going tomorrow, and next month, and next year. Reality is a long-term commitment.

"It's easy to experience a short-term spike from good ideas and momentary habits. The challenge (and the real impact) comes from taking that out of the short-term and into the long-term."

There are two things that hit me in what he says. The first is the obvious long-term commitment that reality truly is, no matter what people trying to sell you stuff want to say.

The thing I want to focus on though is when he talks about "short-term spikes from good ideas and momentary habits." I remember a college wrestler from years ago that was so good at one thing he did, that he didn't pay attention to the other aspects of his discipline. When I say didn't pay attention, I mean that he didn't waste too much of his training time on them. He was adequate in them and that was good enough to do what he needed to do. He

In real wrestling, you get two points for taking your opponent down and one point if you escape. He was so good at taking his opponent down, truly unstoppable no matter who he wrestled, that he simply let them out of the hold and gave them one point so that he could go back and take them down again and get his two points. He never lost that way!

Now the point in this is to know what it is you're really good at. We can all improve on some of our weaknesses, but to be overly concerned with them will cause us to neglect the real strengths that will make us attain our goals.

Yes we can tighten up some things that we need to improve in, but we must stick to our knitting, stick to that which we bring the greatest value to our company. To me, improvement isn't so much about looking at what we aren't good at and bringing them up to mediocrity, it's about looking at what we're great at and even getting better at it.

That which is the hardest to replace us in is what it is we're great at. Set your attention upon that and improve and improve in it. Let your competition get their one point while you continuously get you two. The key is sticking to what got you there and not going down another path.