Lessons from 'Starting Over' by Bob Gass (2)

How to Prevent Organizational Dry Rot
Have an effective program for the recruitment and development of talent; people are the ultimate source of renewal.

Don’t kill the spark of individuality.

Cultivate a climate where it is comfortable to ask questions.

Don’t carve the internal structure in stone; most structures are designed to solve problems that no longer exist.

Have a good system of internal communication.

Don’t become prisoners of procedures. In most organizations, the rule book grow fatter as the ideas grow fewer.

Combat tendencies toward the vested interest of a few; in a long run everyone’s best interest in the continuing vitality of the group.

Be more interested in what you are becoming, than what you have been.

An organization runs on 3 things: motivation, conviction and moral; each person has to believe that his talent means something and that he is recognized by the whole.

The profit-and-loss statement is not the true measure of your success – fulfilling your God-given purpose and making daily progress toward you goal is.

· We fail because of a negative outlook

§ Your words create the climate you live in

· We fail because we are in the wrong place

§ Often failure is a result of mismatched abilities, interests, personalities or values. Think about that carefully

· We fail because of a lack of commitment

§ God is not limited by your limitations. God’s neither dependent on what is have, nor limited by what you don’t have

§ Just because you’re damaged doesn’t mean you’re not delivered. No, it just means you’re not yet fully developed. You can be delivered in one area and struggling in another – yet God will still use you for his glory

· We fail because of our inability or unwillingness to change

Top Ten Strategies for Dealing with a Dead Horse
Buy a stronger whip

Change riders

Appoint a committee to study the horse

Find a team to revive the horse

Send out a memo declaring the horse really isn’t dead

Hire an expensive consultant and find ‘the real problem’

Harness several dead horses together for increased speed and efficiency

Rewrite the standard definition for a live horse

Declare the horse to be better, faster and cheaper when dead

Promote the horse to a supervising position

Until you have water in your own well, you’ve got to draw it from other men’s well.

Words paint pictures.

People need to see it as well as hear it.

The Difference is Attitude

· There always comes a time when giving up is easier than standing up, and giving in looks more attractive than digging in. In those moments, character may be the only thing you have to draw on to keep you going.

· It is not just enough to stay in the ring that’s commendable, but if that’s all you do, you’ll get your brains knocked out and still not win. The secret is to get back up and do things differently next time.

· Experience is not what happens to you. Experience is what you do with what happens to you – Aldous Huxely.

· If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there. · By failing to plan, you are planning to fail – Benjamin Franklin. Keep on Keeping on

· Life is about 10% of what happens to us and 90% of how we respond to it.

· With the right attitude, no barrier is too high, no valley is too deep, no goal is too extreme and no challenge is too great.

· Serenity prayer: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.