Leadership, Lessons Learned Along the Way

A book that I have learned much from is by Stephen Covey entitled “First things First”. In it he talks about the compass and the clock and how important it is to be governed by our internal compass or reason for being instead of the clock. He discusses how if we do not learn this lesson early in life then we may awake one day to find that life has gone by and we have accomplished nothing of value to anyone including ourselves.

As I am faced with daily questions such as “Should I bring in a new line of business?” or “What do you do when a customer complains about something out of your control?” I come back to this example and realize that the decisions we make whether little or large are all made simple when we look back at our compass and put “First things First”.

I am a firm believer in keeping things simple. If you talk to children they help you to understand this concept. They break it down very easily as they have not had the crazy influences of life confuse their judgment. We must learn from them that simple is better and if the decision is not according to our compass then it is simply wrong.