Randy A Brown

Author: Randy A Brown

  • Achieving Excellence

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    448637: Achieving Excellence Achieving Excellence

    By Robert Heller / Dk Publishing Inc.

    Learn how to be positive and determined in setting and achieving your ambitions in life. Achieving Excellence demonstrates how to improve your physical fitness and mental agility, and shows how to increase your personal productivity and become more effective, allowing you to fulfill your ambitions and achieve success. As part of an innovative series The Essential Manager, which covers a wide range of management and personal development titles, each title is a comprehensive yet compact source of easy reference for all those in or aspiring to a position of responsibility, with a focus on developing and enhancing professional management practice.

  • Motivation

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Motivation is the driving force that helps us get things done. Sometimes it feels impossible to get motivated and once we’re motivated it can difficult to stay motivated. Sometimes it can be so easy to get distracted. Look! Something shiny!

    There is no one best or easy way to stay motivated, but one thing that I find helpful is to pay attention to my goals. To say it another way- keep your eye on the prize. Keeping my goals in mind helps me to stick with it. It helps me to write my goals down and look at them often. This helps me see what I need to do to reach my goals.

    Of course being able to stick with it depends on how bad I want it. If I don’t want it bad enough it is easy for me to get distracted. I usually lose interest and forget about my goals, even if it’s a good goal.

    For me, motivation is tied directly to desire. But, even if I strongly desire something, it can still feel out of reach, which makes me lose interest. To keep focused I give myself pep-talks. Sometimes I write post-it notes and place them around my monitor. So when I’m working on something that I know I’m likely to be distracted from, I see these notes that tell me to stay focused. Notes like: “You KNOW what you need to do”, “Stick with it”, “Don’t waste time”, etc. I usually find a desktop background on the topic I’m working on to remind me of my topic. For example, I had a background of a cap and diploma when I was in college.

    Write your goals down. Stay focused on your goals and keep your eye on the prize, but don’t forget to take a break every now and then.

  • EntreLeadership

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    617856: EntreLeadership EntreLeadership

    By Dave Ramsey / Howard Books

    Take your business to the next level! Whether you’re sitting at the CEO’s desk, the middle manager’s cubicle, or a card table in your living-room-based start-up, this practical step-by-step guide shows you how to unify and inspire your team; handle money and debt; deal with contracts and vendors; reach every goal you set; and more! 320 pages, hardcover from Howard.

  • A Higher Standard

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    A leader is respected when he holds himself to a higher standard. When everyone thinks of you as ‘one of the guys’ they might feel more comfortable being around you, but they can’t fully respect you as their leader because they know you too well. They might think of you as the boss, but that doesn’t mean they think of you as a leader.

    When everyone in the office uses bad language their fellow workers don’t think anything of it, but when the person they look up to as the leader uses the same language they talk among themselves about how they were surprised that someone in their position would talk like that. Without realizing it or knowing why, they are holding their leaders to a higher standard. This standard holds for your work ethic, time management, and even education.

    Leaders should be more reserved. This shows the character of leadership. This doesn’t mean that you think you’re better than anyone else. The fact is, people tend to hold their leaders to a higher standard, so why not hold yourself to that same standard?

  • Rising to the Call of Leadership

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    457691: Rising to the Call of Leadership Rising to the Call of Leadership

    By Random House, Inc

    Rising to the Call of Leadership is a 6-week small-group study for people who are interested in learning for themselves more about what the Bible says on various subjects, but who have only limited time to meet together. In this study of four important leaders of Israel- Eli, Samuel, Saul, and David-you’ll explore key leadership principles, including how to make wise decisions under pressure, deal effectively with mistakes, and set a course that others will follow. Most important, you’ll learn what God expects of you-and how you can rise to the call of effective leadership.

  • Christian Ethics Essentials from BiblicalTraining.org

    Reading Time: < 1 minute

    Ethics is the study of right and wrong. It attempts to explain why something is right and why something is wrong. Too many people try to explain ethics on majority rule, popular opinion, or even personal opinion. I believe that God gave us the Bible as our foundation for ethics. BiblicalTraining.org provides a free seminary class in audio on the subject of Christian ethics. You can listen to the course here:

    Christian Ethics Essentials

  • The Davy Crockett Method

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    One of my favorite principles of leadership and life in general is what I call the Davy Crockett Method. I’ve quoted this method for many years and I’ve been known to quote this principle in many situations. A situation will arise where someone asked “how should we approach this problem?” I always answer “I would use the Davy Crockett Method.” As most people nowadays are not as familiar with the saying of Davy Crockett, I almost always have to explain what the Davy Crockett Method is by giving the quote: “Make sure you’re right, then go ahead.” Sound advice.

     

  • Success

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    Being successful is almost a universal goal. Almost everyone I talk to says they want to be successful. People often describe others as being successful when they’ve gotten a good job. Not being successful is one of the greatest complaints I hear from people looking back on their lives. They say “I wish I was successful”.  These same people might have a nice home and nice car, yet they still do not see themselves as successful. The problem is not that they are not successful. The problem comes from their definition of success.

    There are many definitions to the word ‘success’. Success is relative. Success really just means that you are reaching your goals. In order to be successful you must have realistic goals. If your goal is to make the most money, have the best job, have the prettiest wife, have the nicest car, have a boat, have happy children, and being the envy of everyone you know, you need to set new goals. You will never be successful because even if you have these things there will be something you don’t have or someone else will have something better. I don’t define success as “keeping up with the Joneses”. Material things do not equal happiness.

    A better set of goals would be to complete your degree, get a dependable job that keeps you comfortable, have a happy marriage, to be spiritually secure, and be able to help others. This is attainable and measureable. The only way to measure success is to have well defined goals that are realistic.

    Give yourself realistic goals, but not goals that are too easy to reach. Don’t define success as something that is easy to reach, but something that is worth reaching.

     

  • Leadership Essentials: Shaping Vision, Multiplying Influence, Defining Character

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    810970: Leadership Essentials: Shaping Vision, Multiplying Influence, Defining Character Leadership Essentials: Shaping Vision, Multiplying Influence, Defining Character

    By Greg Ogden & Daniel Meyer / InterVarsity Press

    Prepare well to lead well! Ideal for individual use, with a partner or mentor, or in a training group, this 12-session interactive workbook helps you develop your own unique leadership gifts. Learn to cultivate the godly leader’s character, posture, vision, and skill with Bible studies, insightful readings, memory verses, and practical exercises. 168 pages, softcover from InterVarsity.

  • Synergy

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    Synergy is an interesting concept. Synergy is when people can do more together than they can apart. Synergy is as much art as science. This is why production lines work better than individuals trying to build the same number of products on their own. Synergy is why teamwork is so important.

    I first learned about synergy by accident. I became a manager long before I got my bachelors in management. I managed a molding department of a figurine manufacturing company. Since it was a small company, I also molded the figurines. I would hand pour around 60 molds and hand the molded parts to the cleanup table where we had five workers. I noticed several things.

    First, my molds were empty more often than they were full because I had to empty all of them before I could start filling them again. Second, it was difficult to keep the five workers busy. I decided to pull one of the workers to the molding table. As I emptied the mold, my helper would fill it. This way, all of the molds stayed filled almost constantly. We produced four times the products than I could have done by myself. This was enough work in just a few hours to keep the cleanup table busy all day, so my helper could then go back to cleanup, while I tended the woodshop, packing, or made new molds.

    Good leaders should always look for opportunities for synergy in all areas of life, whether at work, home, or Church. Synergy can strengthen a marriage as well as a business. Synergy strengthens. Look for it. Build with it.