Rule Number 1: Keep Your Word

For the past decade, I've been told time and again that TheKiddo is a special little human being. I was reminded of this recently when one of her teachers remarked, "Whatever you guys are doing, it's working. You should teach a master class."

Honestly, TheKiddo deserves the credit for being such a special human. We do our best to guide her, support her, and let her find her own way. She is the one filled with kindness, compassion, a competitive spirit, and a keen power of observation (as well as a startling large memory). 

That's not to say we have a laissez-faire approach to parenting. Quite the opposite; however, we avoid being helicopter parents. TheKiddo has to learn to handle both wins and losses; solve her own problems; fight her own battles; and ultimately discover what she wants her life to be.

There are several lessons we reinforce as often as possible—including reminding her, "First, you have to want to. Everything else is details." As part of this, she has been told time and again that Rule Number 1 is "Keep Your Word."

If you agree to something, do it.

If you sign up for something, see it through.

If you tell someone you'll do something, make sure it's done forthwith.

When you don't do those things, when you fail to keep your word at any point, it becomes difficult for people to believe you, or believe in you. Trust and respect are hard to earn, and are incredibly fragile. When they're broken, they can never be the same. 

Of Course Good Dads Make Good Leaders

I recently stumbled across a post on LinkedIn that lays out the reasons awesome dads make great leaders.

As someone who takes his responsibilities as a dad very seriously—even to the point of carrying the pink backpack whenever necessary—all of the reasons make complete sense. They also seem to be rather self evident to me.

Men who take their roles as a dad seriously, will always be careful to treat those that work with them with respect and concern. It's the men who don't take the role seriously that I worry about.

Innovation is overhyped

Among the many words that are overwrought in business and shoved into public discourse far too often, innovation is an egregious example. If you look closely at your business, there are three things that you will observe:

1) You're not as innovative as you think you are.

2) Your company is not as innovative as you think it is.

3) You are producing a commodity. You should stop trying to convince yourself otherwise, and embrace whatever it is that you do better than your competitors. And then prune away all the nonsense that prevents you from improving it daily.

Yes, in the meanest sense of the definition, innovation may be part of your processes because you can claim a newness to what you're doing. Yet that is likely a dubious claim. Whatever is new in your business, is only a factor of difference from what your competitors are doing. Such a factor is likely to be a few percentage points on a scale, and certainly not a significant one.

It's not significant because you've studied your competitors, benchmarked against the leader in your category, carefully considered the industry best practices, and convinced yourself that you're creating processes for successful innovation. When you do all of these things, you assure yourself of creating a commodity. Just as you do when you spend precious resources on studying your clients/customers/buyers via focus groups.

If you are truly innovative, however, congratulations on creating something truly unique. Now, prepare yourself for your competitors to catch you.