Beware the Tail

Have you ever heard the story that Zig Ziglar made famous about “kicking the cat?”

Well… it’s what can happen when things don’t quite go as you expected. There’s a great Fed-Ex commercial from Superbowl 25 that illustrates the principle.

That’s not what this message is about… it’s about the same guy, a caveman, who when exiting his abode, then called a cave, he sees what looks like a cucumber on the ground in front of him.

Excited that luck has finally turned favorable to him, he excitedly picks up the would be cucumber. What to his dismay the cucumber isn’t that at all. It’s the end of the tail of a very large and very upset dinosaur. Our ancient friend meets the same end as the poor cave dweller in the above referenced video. 

This kind of thing happens everyday in both the Entrepreneurial World and Corporate America. Here’s how…
In Corporate America bosses say something like, “Training my team is a complete waste of time, once they’re trained they’ll just go looking for another job somewhere and I’ll have to start all over again.” Then by that critical error in logic and judgement they think that not developing their team members will keep them around. Imagine a team not trained, not developed in this day! Tragic.

An example from the Entrepreneurial World is when the business owner focuses only on filling the pipeline with no regard to the next steps. I’ve seen it over and over again. It’s like a roller-coaster, up and down, up and down, only in their world it’s sell, sell, sell then fulfill, fulfill, fulfill. It’s a vicious circle. As you plan out your 2013, be sure to allow for the “next steps.” Look for leverage.

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