Dan Clark

Titles

The Answers Are Still In The Box
Taking It To The Next Level
We're told to think outside the lines and outside the box. What if the answers are still in the box? Most people complicate their lives and never fulfill their destiny because they think it's the responsibility of their community and their job to make life exciting and meaningful. They resent their jobs and only look forward to Friday instead of Monday. They think they are paid by the hour, when in reality they are paid for the value they bring to that hour. They think success and happiness are found outside themselves, instead of within.
Consequently, too many come to meetings in search of new answers when what they really need are the right answers. You can't get right answers from wrong questions and the answers to the right questions are already within your organization. They are within you! When we believe if best is possible, good is not good enough and that none of us can exceed our potential, we just misjudge it, we start to comprehend that we really can take it to the next level, become THE brand of choice not price, increase productivity and profitability, attract more market share and become more of who we already are!

Best or Right?
Building A Winning Team
There are professional sports teams with rosters crammed full of the highest paid "best" players in the league and they still lose. The headline after the U.S. basketball "Dream Team" lost at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, simply read, "680 Million Dollars Couldn't Win Us A Gold Medal!" Why? To win, we need more than the "best" players - we need the "right" people. Obviously, it's not all about team - teams lose! Whoever said "It's not whether you win or lose that counts," probably lost. Companies with the best people in their industry are going bankrupt as you read this and they are a team. Why? They coach results instead of behavior. They compete against their "plan" instead of against themselves and their competition. They focus on profits instead of people.
They say there is no "i" in team, but teams lose - it's about winning and WINNING has two "i's" in it: Independent Individual Preparation - a commitment to: Character, Confidence, Consistency, Change, Clarity of Cause and Creating Chemistry; and Interdependent Collaboration, a commitment to: Cooperate and Contribute.T Of course it's about team - Together Everyone Achieves More, but the teams that win have the most "i-players" on them. "Best" players possess and practice three to five of the eight "C's." "Right" players live and breathe all of them!

You Can't Quit, It's A League Rule!
Changing From Continuous Improvement to Rapid Growth
Were you born flawed and ill-equipped, and expected to spend your life “putting in” what was “left out” at birth? No. Nothing is missing. The goal is to improve and become more of who you already are! J. Paul Getty said, “In times of rapid change, experience could be your worst enemy.” Eric Hoffer said, “In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.” If we refuse to change we become obsolete.
Change is painful, but pain is a signal to grow, not to suffer. Once we learn the lesson the pain is teaching us, the pain goes away. Change from the outside-in is reactive which creates pressure. However, change from the inside-out is proactive which creates power - power to adapt, knowing that it's not what happens, but what we do with what happens that makes or breaks us; power to focus, knowing we will not have regrets for things we did, we will only have regrets for things we did not do.