When outsourcing your weaknesses, it’s obviously important to assemble the right team of vendors and/or employees. But what many entrepreneurs don’t realize is that timing is key.

As Jim Collins explained in his international best-seller, Good to Great, the executives who ignited transformations from good to great did not first figure out where to drive the bus and then get people to take it there. Instead, they first got the right people on the bus – and the wrong people off the bus – and then figured out where to drive it.

They said in essence, “Look, I don’t really know where we should take this bus. but I know this much: If we get the right people on the bus, the right people in the right seats, and the wrong people off the bus, then we’ll figure out how to take it someplace great.”

So before you figure out where your company is going or who will do what, you need to first get the [Read more...]

When trying to increase productivity and improve results, most people mistakenly try to improve their weaknesses. A better, easier and more reliable approach is to strengthen your strengths and outsource your weaknesses.

Trying to strengthen weaknesses only results in a lot of strong weaknesses, which is not the way to have a world-class company. It puts your focus on what you are not good at or don’t enjoy, and a universal truth is “What you focus on expands.”

It’s OK to have weaknesses; everyone does. By the time you were three years old, your brain had all of the synaptic connections it will ever have. Where you’re most densely connected, those are your strengths. Where you’re not densely connected, those are your weaknesses. You are who you are, so don’t try to fix you.

Instead, fix the role you are trying to live into. Take an inventory of [Read more...]