Never sacrifice quality; there is no substitute for building it right. Never let your desire for rapid growth take the place of your common sense. There will be times when people you thought were real “stars” will turn out not to be stars. Some will lose interest and quit. You have to keep looking for the right kind of people, people that you think can do the job. You cannot appoint a bunch of people with bad character or poor potential and expect them to work out. You may grow faster, but your progress is bound to be temporary. Reckless building will always come back to you in the form of bad business and financial loss.
Work with those who deserve it, not just those who need it. On the surface, this sounds like a harsh principle, but it is not. It is a tough principle. It will save you a lot of unnecessary pain and heartache.
Every person who comes to work for you in your organization needs your help. A big part of your job as a leader is to help people get started. Train them the right way, and stick by them through both good and bad times, but comes a time when you have to back off and let people rely on themselves.
Over a period, you will see who is really making the effort, really trying to make it in the business, and you will see quickly who is making no effort at all to succeed. As a leader, you have to work constantly to help the people who are sincerely trying to succeed, the people who are trying to help themselves. You cannot spend all your time working with people who will not meet you halfway by putting forth effort of their own. Every leader, sooner or later, must make that distinction.
That does not mean you just give up on the people who are not making an effort. You must always encourage, always be positive, and always keep telling them you think they can make it if they are willing to try. However, at some point, you have to leave the burden of effort to them. You have to stand back and let them show you they are serious and sincere, and that they have the determination to succeed in your organization.
Too many times, people take the role of leader to the extreme. They get so involved in trying to help build successful people that they wind up spending all their time trying to motivate people who are doing nothing. Meanwhile, the people who do have the desire and are willing to work hard lose their momentum through sheer neglect and lack of direction.
Remember, you only have 24 hours in a day, and there is a limit to your time. Help all your new people equally and watch for the “do-ers” to stick their heads up. Then, focus the majority of your attention on helping those who are eager to improve and want your help.
It is not that you should give up on people—never! Always be willing to help and always encourage everyone to work toward his or her full potential. Let your people know that you will never “write them off”, but always remind people that you cannot become successful for them - they must do it themselves, with your help. You can only help those who will help themselves.
Give your efforts time to compound. Everybody talks about effort and consistency and hard work, but nobody talks about the importance of time in building a church, business or career. We have seen so many people who work incredibly hard, then give up before they have really allowed enough time for the seeds of their work to bear some fruit.
It is just like the principle of compound interest. You put $100 a month in your savings account and that $100 draws interest, then the interest draws interest, and it keeps on compounding until you build up a sizable sum of money.
It is the same with your efforts and abilities. We have heard people say, “It doesn’t matter how hard I work, I’m not ever going to become a success.” What they do not realize in the early years of their church or business is that, even though they may not be seeing the success they wanted, they are developing their talents and accumulating knowledge.
Not all that knowledge and development may pay off today or tomorrow, but the more you do, the more you keep building your talents and your wisdom. Eventually the payoff will be more than you ever anticipated - both in terms of money and in terms of incredible business success.
Compounding is important in personal relationships, too. All the people you meet during your business career, all the personal contacts you develop along the way are an important part of your career. The person you meet today may be just the person your organization needs five years down the road. The relationships you build throughout your business life can pay off richly in terms of personal satisfaction, as well as important career development.
When your organization is going good, do not decrease your efforts. Keep moving ahead. In fact, intensify your efforts or you will lose the advantage of the compounding effect. Just as you have to keep adding to your bank account to take advantage of the compound interest, you must keep building in your career to keep the compounding effect in force.
The only way you can gain real knowledge is through effort and experience; there just is not any other way. People have a tendency to discount the importance of sticking with one career area for a long period. They get impatient for success and jump around from one thing to the next, never allowing time for their efforts to compound. Always remember that everything you’re doing today will pay off for you in the future—with interest.
Always be willing to start over. Because it is tough to lead your own business or organization, you are bound to make mistakes. Everybody does, and some mistakes hurt more than others. Sometimes, a mistake may seriously damage your organization, and you may lose everything that you have worked so hard to gain. One characteristic in winners is that they are capable of starting over, if they have to.
It is a fact that people learn very little when everything is going well. Most great lessons, in business and in life, are learnt in the hard times. Being able to survive those times builds the kind of inner strength and character that people who always have it easy just never know.
Be willing to start over rather than compromise your principles. If a business deal would move your business ahead, but involves unethical practices, do not do it. If eliminating a problem or terminating someone will cause you to lose money, do it in spite of the money. Even if you would like to just close your eyes to the problem, you cannot. As the leader, you have to handle it.
Quality in every aspect of your ministry or business is an important concept. The only way to build it big is to build it right. It takes a little bit longer to build your church, business or organization with quality - quality people, quality methods, quality principles - but it’s worth it. You will have fewer disappointments, a stronger business, a better feeling about yourself and your people, and bigger success.