THE KAIZEN REPORT
#3
DECISIONS – We make them every day. When to wake up, what and how much to eat, whether we exercise our bodies and mind or not, whether we go to work or not, and what we do after we get to work. When we look back on our lives we will see that the end result was one little decision after another and most of them are uneventful. But the little decisions we make influence what we will do when we have to make a big decision.
Just this week the University of Alabama and Iowa State University lost their football and men’s basketball coach respectively and the reason had nothing to do with how many games they had won or lost (usually the only reason a coach is fired). The reason they are no longer employed at their schools was because of poor decisions each of them made. If you asked them now, “Would you give up your position for the temporary enjoyment of one night?” of course they would say “No!” But that’s exactly what happened.
We all make mistakes. Some mistakes are going to naturally occur because we are human. But some mistakes can and should be avoided. How do we do this?
1) Stay focused on the long term goals. What do you really want to accomplish? Are the things you are doing today guiding you toward that ultimate goal? John Wooden calls it the pyramid of success. Success (peace of mind) is based on a solid foundation of other principles. (www.coachwooden.com)
2) Be aware of your surroundings. We have become desensitized to the evil around us and are sometimes caught off guard to how deep of trouble we are in. Every time it rains really hard the weather reporters warn of driving through flooded roads. About six years ago, I was on a road late at night during a bad rain storm. There were cars and trucks in front of me that had passed over a low area and it looked safe. I decided to follow and felt my car start to drift as we were in the middle of the flood. The tires eventually regained contact with the road, but for a second or two we were floating and it scared me drastically! The road looked ok, and it was a bad decision to try and make it through, but fortunately it didn’t have tragic consequences. The Bible tells us “that the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (2nd Peter 5:8).
3) Accept responsibility for your actions. When it comes time to “pay the piper” the best thing it to tell the truth and accept the consequences. Even when we confess and are sorry for what we’ve done, there is still a price that must be paid. If the two coaches who made very public mistakes had not been in the places they were, the administrators would not have had to make the tough decision that hurt the players and fans of those schools. When it is necessary to punish my children for the things they do, I try to have them understand that I have been given a responsibility to raise them in the right way and I don’t enjoy punishing them. I often times give them a choice of a punishment or doing what I ask them to do. It’s amazing which choice they almost always make. It’s not the teacher who fails the student; it’s the student who failed the test. It’s not the manager’s fault that he must let a worker go because he is not performing his tasks, it’s the worker’s decision. It’s not the coach who decides who plays in the game, it’s the players. The coach is there to win and he is going to play the players who give him that best opportunity. We don’t have to worry about the “speed traps” if we follow the speed limit.
4) Do the next right thing. If the next decision you make is the right one, you’ll be as close to perfect as any human can be. You can’t do anything about the past, but can only control what you can control now. Another sports analogy: A player makes a bad throw then makes another mistake because he is trying to correct the first one. That’s called the “two mistake syndrome”. Just because you make one mistake doesn’t mean another must follow.
If you buy printing, you decide which company produces that for you. I hope you will consider using DSI and me. You can find more information about our capabilities and specialties at www.gregeubanks.com. There may be some area we can help save you and your business money.
SPECIAL NOTE: I still have the 3” x 5” USA flag magnets with the words “United We Stand” available for free. It is perfect for your refrigerator, file cabinet, or car. If you’d like one, please contact me through www.gregeubanks.com. All I ask is you consider me the next time a print project comes up and tell others about me when they ask where you got the flag magnet.
Your friend,
Greg Eubanks
(615) 778-0145
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