| Get Your Hands Dirty
Preventative Maintenance is the first in a series of Boek to Business: Get Your Hands Dirty challenges.
There is a preventative maintenance parallel between the role of a professional leader and a mechanic. Take the challenge. Get your hands dirty and get better business results through the good people who surround you.
We talk a lot about leadership from the balcony or the clock tower. While seeing the big picture is important for a leader, knowing what's really going on comes from talking with people. The best leaders know what they need to know by asking good thoughtful questions and listening.
While the Centers for Disease Control may disagree, shaking hands is a good starting point. Shake hands with employees, managers and supervisors beyond your inner circle of direct reports. Shake hands with your customers. Shake hands with suppliers, people in other departments and whoever else your people depend on to meet business commitments.
Back in the late 70s, Anheuser Busch dominated the domestic beer industry. I did my part to help out. Early in my career, I was one of a team of managers for the start-up of a large Anheuser Busch brewery. For the grand opening, August Busch III, who was at the time CEO of Anheuser Busch, showed up with his entourage from corporate headquarters in Saint Louis. It was a big deal for the community and a big deal for all of us who had made it happen. Mr. Busch stopped by my office after the celebration. He introduced himself, shook my hand and looked me in the eye to thank me for my contributions to a successful start-up.
A handshake is a powerful leadership tool. Use it to bridge the gap between the top floor and the shop floor. Think of it as a preventative maintenance component of your role as a professional leader. There is power in a handshake and it is supercharged when accompanied by eye contact and sincere interest in the person attached to the other hand. Use it to connect, learn and build trust – persistently.
Like going to the gym to get in shape, handshaking will fall to the wayside if you don't build it regularly into your schedule. If you don't have time to connect with the people who are essential to your success, you may not have time to be successful.
A Look in the Mirror
 How quickly can you name all the people who are essential to your success?
- When did you last connect with each of them?
- What situations have you had to fix in the last six months that could have been prevented by persistent human Preventative Maintenance?
- Your people probably know when a train wreck is coming, why don't you k now until it happens?
Lagniappe - A little something extra and $100 from Route 2 to a worthy charity
"This is Jelena. I can help you." This is how the phone is answered in my dentist for life's office. I like it. Maybe it's because over the years, the Dr. Jeff Tufarolo team always does help. A family member takes a bite out of the asphalt and the Tufarolo team makes a U-turn and heads back to the office to repair damaged teeth and sooth wounded pride. These are fine people doing a little something extra every day for patients and the community. Best of all they tolerate the profound insight and side-splitting humor that I offer from under the nitrous mask and that's a little something extra that makes all the difference.
A $100 contribution will be made to the American Red Cross in recognition of the good folks at Jeff Tufarolo, DDS.
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One day it's Thursday, December 31, 2009, and then it's Friday, January 1 and now 2010. I like that a bit of psychic "smoke and mirrors" allows us to mentally close a chapter in our history book and start a new one. If you are one of the many leaders who got a healthy dose of humility in 2009, some learning was probably included in addition to the pain.
