12 Week Plan LIVE Event: Opening Talk- Leadership Ingredients For A New Business Cocktail

Remember the days where windows showed up like clockwork in 3 days?  Chemical arrived the next day?  Subcontractors called you back?  Schedules held true?  Material budgeting was straightforward?  Clients had empathy, patience, and treated you as the expert?   Remember the days when  your biggest headache was, “how do we find new business?” The British playwright Michael McMillan said, “You can't start the next chapter of your life if you keep re-reading the last one.” As you come into this final 12-Week Plan LIVE event of 2022…this final opportunity to think deeply through the new challenges you will confront, the new mountains you will climb, the new opportunities you will pursue… you have a choice. Let me rephrase, you have to make a choice. Will you gripe, moan and mope about those mean clients, those non-committal subs or vendors, those irritating shipping delays, or those increased prices?   Or will you cut the strings of excuses, limitations, and barriers, and be free from the sludge and the mud of what Zig Ziglar calls “stinkin’ thinkin’”. We are in a cesspool of negativity right now.  I hate my job, I hate my town, I hate the people I work with, I hate the government, this head coach, that team, this policy, that country and on and on.   It reminds me of George Strait’s song “I hate everything”.  We are not called to falter and we are not called to fade…we have been called and built to FLOURISH!  To flourish, we must intentionally control our mindset.   And in order to flourish in 2023 we are going to have to rid ourselves of stinkin’ thinkin’ and embrace a new attitude of Fortitude: the ability to display courage in pain, to go into new opportunities with a mindset of strength, believing we CAN do something rather than swimming in the cesspool of “can’t”. Mrs. Jones is being an email bully?  We CAN learn to speak to her with truth and thoughtfulness. Your partner, sub, or vendor is not pulling their weight?  We CAN influence and bring value to their operation in a way that serves everyone around. Tough conversation needs to be had with team members?  We CAN plan conversation in an appropriate way that brings value to everyone…a Win/Win mindset. Hard-pressed to find new team members?  We CAN build a thoughtful, powerful, spectacular recruiting, hiring, and onboarding process that WOW’s recruits and supplies them with a substantive opportunity.   We CAN do those things…but not with our current attitudes.   Never in the history of the American workforce have four separate generations worked so closely and communicated so seamlessly than what is happening right now. You have Boomers who are remaining in the workforce longer, and Gen Z’ers who are entering into higher-level roles earlier.  The Boomers, X’ers, Millennials, and Z’ers are interacting everyday. It’s like a cocktail of Dockers pleats, meets peglegs, meets skinny pants, and now everyone is confused.   You can throw your hands up and protect your generational brand…OR you can make a decision to ignore the stinkin’ thinkin’ and embrace the generational diversity, and the value that comes with.  The values of new generations are in the questions they ask of our institutions, our methods, our systems, our policies, our norms and nuances.   The value of older generations are in the standards they hold for their work product.   There is exponential value in merging those two schools of thought.  Stinkin’ Thinkin’ creeps in and will corrupt all of it so that very little of the cross-generational value is pulled out and instead we spend our days griping, moaning, and moping.   We grumble about the Karen’s, and take pot shots at the bro’s.  There is a better way!  A more HUMAN way.  We live in a world where some, seemingly opposite things can be true at the same time Acknowledging Mental Health realities AND Leading with Perseverance Flexibility AND Budget LImitations Owners can Listen AND Steward the business Key Leaders can Listen AND Steward the role Grace AND Truth AND Past AND Present AND Future Now AND Later Each of us comes into this room with convictions, norms, and beliefs. I challenge you to question your convictions.  If your convictions are too weak to withstand questioning…then your convictions are not foundations by which you have confidence to stand.  Let’s build and reinforce a new belief, a new conviction…a belief that hard things CAN be done, rocky decisions CAN be navigated, and they will lead to powerful outcomes that will bring the satisfaction we desire.   The generational realities in our modern workplace will challenge us and will be a massive growth opportunity for all of us to retire our stinkin’ thinkin’. What are some of the ingredients for this needed mindset? Generational Nuance is real…your language must shift The new world wants a show, embrace it…we are no longer analogue and text…we are iconic (Workshop 1) The substance of Process Clarity and Repetition will be the winning currency…write it down and plan for it (Workshop 2)  Consume a steady diet of “Implement, Evolve, Rinse, Repeat” (Workshop 3) Life and Business are merging…don’t gripe about it, embrace it.  We’ve been living in a world in the 2000’s that have tried to force our hand into choosing Right OR Left, Loud or Quiet, Clemson OR Carolina…could the answer be both, neither, or a healthy mix of the two? Allow yourself the freedom to have your mind challenged.  Some of my greatest learning as a man, living in the south, who identifies as an apprentice and student of Jesus…some of my greatest learning has come from friends outside of that tribe.   As soon as we wrapped up the September Live Event, our team sat down to a delicious taco lunch at the La Poblanita food truck and we knew exactly what our agenda was going to be for this entire morning. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive for the workshops we had, and yet still some wanted more deep dive time for workshops.  We are moving from 4 workshops down to three, and you as a business team are going to walk out of here with a map…a plan on how to recruit, hire, and onboard new team members that takes into account the generational realities, and also the process you are inviting them into.   Thomas will lead our first workshop: Creating The Spectacle: Employees Want To SEE Something Special Patrice will lead our second workshop: Stirring In The Substance: Backing Up The Spectacle With Your Process I will lead our third workshop: Bellied Up For The Long Haul: Building an “Unleavable” Experience During each workshop, we will have some opening thoughts, and then we will guide you through a two-part discussion with your own team. Part One will be devoted to generating as many ideas as possible. Part Two will be to the mapping and implementation of the best of those ideas. Some of you already have existing elements of one or all three of the pieces: recruiting, hiring, and/or onboarding.   This is to go back to the garage and take time to refresh your process, and ask yourself, “what if we changed this up to meet new demands?” Also, allow your minds to go places that are uncomfortable and a bit squirrely.  This is a safe place to dream, to wonder, to invent, and to create.  Some of you will be uncomfortable there…get over it…come into the dreams world if only for a few minutes.   Let’s get started.