Week 9 - Disciple Leadership

 For this week’s class readings, I really enjoyed learning about how good companies can become great companies.

The guidelines to accomplish this transition seem very straight forward after being explained:

1. Leadership

a. The leaders of great companies are not the high-profile people seen every day (CEO etc.) but are the ones in the trenches working to make the company a better place day in and day out.

b. My dad always told me, “A great leader will do anything he asks someone else to do. He is not afraid to get his hands dirty I the trenches of life.”

2. First who than what

a. Find the right people to find the right objectives and they will get the work done. Hire kind people and your business will thrive. 

3. Confront the True Facts

a. Always check the facts and always be honest, everything else will fall into place. Do not take on the market unless you understand the market’s pitfalls and triumphs. 

4. Hedgehog idea

a. This was a very interesting concept to me. The hedgehog is a simple animal that is good at doing one thing, getting away to live another day.

b. This concept translates to the business world as, find the one thing you and your business can become world class at and stick to it. Always strive to make it better.

c. This concept hit me hard today and I think I am already on the right path for this in the business of Family History Research. 

i. Becoming the upmost expert on the Utah Territorial Prison system.  Most of my own family history research keeps bringing me back to this.

5. Culture of discipline

a. Eliminate the need for a hierarchy in the workplace. Everyone is equal and has ideas to share.

i. I think my current workplace does this rather well. No one is more important than anyone else but everyone is needed to get the job done. I like this work environment a lot.

6. Technology accelerator 

a. Only advance or embrace better technology if it makes sense to stay in the realm of your hedgehog ideal.

i. Don’t advance technology just for the sake of advancing technology only advance technology if it will help your hedgehog ideal to be even better.

I will endeavor to put these concepts into practice in my own business.