Taking Care of Your Chain Gang

A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, or in some cases it's most dissatisfied or incompetent link. I am talking about the chain of people you link-up with to accomplish important things in your life...your success-chain.

What do you know about these people? How much attention do you pay to the people in your success-chain? How competent are the critical people in your success-chain? How contented are they?

It is easy to take the people in your success-chain for granted at times, or not even know who they are. It's easy, but it's not a good idea! If someone is a critical link in your success-chain, you need to know at least two things about them. Are they competent and are they contented? There is a direct relationship between the competence and contentment of the people in your success-chain and your success. This seems to be a frequently overlooked issue among people who wonder why things aren't going better in their lives. Therefore, focusing on improving the competence and contentment of your success-chain is something worthy of your attention. In other words...take very good care of your chain gang!

<u>Taking Care of Your Chain Gang</u><br>
So What?

People will occasionally say, "Chris, congratulations. I heard you published another book." I'll say, "Yeah, thanks!"

That's an understandable and reasonable comment in a casual conversation between or among friends. I don't really think there is anything wrong with what the other person said, or how I responded...unless I actually begin thinking it is true. The truth is, whenever a book with my name on the cover is published, there are many people, other than me, who must give up some of their time, talent and energy to make it happen. Here are just a few of the people in my book-writing success-chain:

The person who reviews my draft to make sure it is reasonably coherent and worth considering for the final book.<br>
The person who edits the grammar, checks my spelling, and generally tries to make me seem literate.<br>
The person who designs the cover of the book.<br>
The person who takes care of all the legal filings and processes related to the book.<br>
The person who converts my text from a word processing document to a document in the format that will be accepted by a printer.<br>
The person who prints the book.<br>
And if you consider the chain of people indirectly involved - the chain of people who made the computer I use, the chain of people who sold the computer to me, the chain of people who made the software I use, the chain of people who made the equipment the printer uses, the chain of people who made the paper the printer uses, the chain of people who made the ink the printer uses.<br>
And so forth and so on...this particular human-chain literally links people from around the world.<br>
And all this is just to get one little book published. Once the book is published and ready for sale, new success-chains begin to start linking up. Ultimately, they all are somehow connected to getting the book out of my mind and into people's hands.

If you reverse this process and follow the chain to my past, you will find that I had to read many books, learn from many teachers and get involved in many experiences in order to gain the knowledge required to write a book.<br> Each book I read was the end result of different chains of people. My teachers, former employers, and others were all links in my experience-chain. <br>I think you get the point by now. Success is only the tip of any creative iceberg. <br>Know your success-chain...nurture your success-chain!

<u>Taking Care of Your Chain Gang</u><br>
Now What?

You cannot know everyone in your success-chain, but you can and must get to know at least the three or four people who are critical to your success. And you can quickly determine the three or four functions that these people perform that are critical to your success. For example, if you are a coach of a baseball team, you understand that there are a few players who have a strong influence on the overall success of the team. And, you understand that the fundamental functions of a solid player are hitting the ball, running, catching and throwing. Think like a baseball coach and identify your critical players. Determine what they need to be good at. Take the time to find out how good they are at what they do. Expect high competency from these critical players...not perfection...but extremely high competency.

In my lifetime, I have been blessed (and at times cursed) with the opportunity to manage many high-earning salespeople. In some cases, these salespeople were making in excess of a million dollars a year. But some of them were also quite talented at spending! Some of the million-dollar earners quickly turned into in-excess-of-million-dollar-spenders. After doing this for a while and accumulating staggering debt, their stress level would rise and their common sense would plummet. In this mental condition they would often make careless sales mistakes, which in turn, upset their customers. When this happened, they would often get up from their desk and strut or swagger (or whatever word best describes walking in an arrogant and angry way) straight to the back office where a lot of the details were handled by people who made, shall we say, significantly less than a million dollars a year. There they would alienate every air-breathing mammal they encountered. I saw several millionaire-dollar earners crash and burn employing this strategy. In these circumstances, the back-office folks were no longer content with helping a swaggering stupid-star. The back-office "success-chain" morphed into a "this jerk is toast-chain". Here's the lesson of this story: Don't do things like this! Do the opposite! Identify the people in your success-chain, and recognize and appreciate what they do for you.

If you are a human being, you probably have what some psychologists refer to as recognition-hunger. So does everyone in your success-chain. Take a look at this comment from the book titled The Achievement Factors by B. Eugene Griessman:

"Some of us have been socialized to believe that only show-offs crave recognition. Nothing could be further from the truth. Not just artists, but craftsmen and entrepreneurs and secretaries and ballplayers communicate through their work. They tell how much they care about what they do. They tell how competent they have become. Anyone who does outstanding work is saying something, and it is an absolute basic need that someone listen, someone notice."

Who are the critical people in your success-chain? If you take the time to identify, get to know them, understand their capabilities and recognize one of them a month for the next year, you will probably increase your chances of success twelve-fold.<br>

You can receive regular tips on how to live a more productive and joyful life by subscribing to Chris' blog at http://www.chriscrouch.typepad.com

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