“Great companies don’t really exist. What we have are great people whom collectively create successful businesses and organizations.” That was the heart of my presentation this week to our entire staff. As I tried to distill Jim Collins’ Good to Great into an hour lecture the bottom line because clear to me. According to Collins, breakthrough organizations not only have the right people on the “bus” but also have them in the right seats. According to him, that’s one of the most important dynamics, if not the most important, in creating truly successful  businesses. While it’s easy to talk about “the organization,” I think we easily forget that like a family, a church, a community or any social entity, a business is comprised of first and foremost of people. The more competent and dynamic the team is the more successful the organization becomes. It’s not a complicated concept. But let’s…

Until we figure out who we are, we are always going to be an imitation of those whom we admire. While emulating our heroes and mentors is not necessarily a bad thing, it always falls short of the original. We must first find our voice in order for us to break away from merely being good at something to being great. I remember finding my voice as a writer. It was my second semester of graduate school and the long paper I turned in to my adviser was not the strung-together researched quotes with personal commentary woven in. For the first time in my English-writing career I had something to say in my own voice and the research quotes became a distance secondary focus. I noticed a difference in my writing and so did my teacher who wrote, “congratulations you’ve found your voice!” in bold red ink on the cover…

I don’t know what it is about the human spirit that often finds itself restless with the status quo. I’m not talking about ingratitude, that elusive never-pleasing, never-ending quest for affirmation, money, power, control or prestige. That, I’m certain, is a condition of the human heart searching for fulfillment outside the Creator. I’m talking about reaching a point in your career, business or even in your relationship with your family that by most standards would be considered successful; however, deep inside you know you could do better. You’ve settled for good when you know you could be great. I’ve been through this cycle so many times in my professional life: I reach a new comfortable plateau and decide that there’s nothing wrong with setting up residence there. After all, my reasoning goes, this is a much better plateau than the one before and some would love to have it. But…