Flight of the Buffalo: Soaring to Excellence, Learning to Let Employees Lead

You need to really know your costs. How? Use a real-time direct costing system. Assign every penny you spend to a product, a customer, a function.

1. In the best of all worlds, what is great performance for your customers?

Leaders Design Systems and Structures That Help Keep the Focus on the Location

Clarity is power. Clarity motivates people to use the vision as a criterion to evaluate their actions. People ask, “Does my action support the vision?” The answer must be clear. Vision provides the tight focus on thinking strategically. It insists that everyone direct his or her energies toward creating the tomorrow we want. Brevity helps. Use a sh

Leaders continue to coach and support because they are genuinely interested in that individual's success.

People in organizations obsessed with learning will succeed.

Obstacles Come in Two Areas: Systems and Mind-sets While most of us are drawn to the mind-set obstacles of motivation, communication, and teamwork issues, the biggest obstacles are organizational obstacles, like the systems and structures. I've found that the systems and structures dramatically affect the mind-sets of everyone else.

Value Is Doing It Better than Anybody Else

When I asked him why he hadn't mentioned his need to me several years earlier, his answer was classic. “You never asked what we needed. You were so busy selling your solution that you didn't hear what we wanted.”