To get started on creating the “Excellence Paradigm,” the name of the game is clarity! Knowing the big thinking involves going back to the core of you and what makes you tick. Whether or not you have thought at this level before is less important than actually doing it now. Remember, creating excellence means replacing any shaky or inaccurate thought patterns with a new culture and doing everything you can to nurture and grow that culture. Yes, Farm Business Owners need to do this like anyone else who wishes to achieve excellence!
Firstly, work on determining your own VISION for your future and why is it really important to you. Great questions to ask yourself include:
If you do this completely honestly, the answers can be revealing. For example, you may really want Freedom of Choice and Control of your own Life – to follow a passion you have long held and to provide a secure future for your family. You may be sick of having your chain yanked by other people and organisations and this current path may have been leading to a life of dependence on those who do not have your future at heart. If you need to take a few sessions to rejig thoughts and wording, by all means do it. If you don’t do the thinking, the results will be illusive.
Secondly, ask yourself what your MISSION really is i.e. what will you do with your time available to achieve what is most important? Another slant on this is what are you so passionate about that you would devote all of your energies to and not really see it as “work”? For example, you may really want to show the way forward for other farmers in getting the best from their sheep genetics. Or maybe you have a yearning to provide a way for young people to succeed despite the difficulties of growing up, like you experienced. It could be that you want to make a contribution to others, to give for giving’s sake. Whatever it is, search for the Mission because it frames up everything you do. The point is not to find it in 5 minutes, but to gain deeper understanding in what makes you tick.
The reason for doing all this is to provide a real focus for everything you do. Why do something if it is not taking you towards what is really important? You will find you will use these concepts as a drafting gate when any opportunity or problem arises, to decide quickly whether or not you pursue or flush the issue. Clarity is important for framing up the plans to achieve the Vision and Mission.
When you can honestly link any action to the Vision and Mission, it is probably worth a lot to you to carry the action out. What I am really saying here is do only those things that move you toward what is most important. Radical? Maybe. Beyond you? Definitely not! Crucial to success? Absolutely!
In the next Personal Leadership article, I will discuss how to put plans in place to link those actions to the Big Thinking, and then to go and do them. Remember, it is action, not inaction that creates results!
This article appears in the GrowFARM Connector (February 2010) - our monthly e-Newsletter. Click here to subscribe to the e-Newsletter