Black In Business

To be inspiring is under appreciated in business. Often times a motivator is considered soft and the ability to create excitement is considered having soft skills. Sayings like, “you have to inspect to get what you expect, and try not is do or do not there is no try,” are hallmarks of tough management. The manager in this case masters the hard skills. Most of my career I worked for managers that took pride in the hard skills. There is a place for both hard skills and soft skills in business today and always.
Often times we are put in charge of a group of people with little or no training. In my case I was an effective salesman, so I became a sales manager.
I worked for an outstanding company and one that was well respected.This is somewhat of an exaggeration but, my training included the advice, “Make sure you start off real tough and angry, you can always be nicer later.You cannot strart off nice and then get nasty later.” Admit it, that is true. If you worry about being liked by your team it becomes difficult to lay down the hammer. There is a place for the hammer in business.
Saying all that to say this, most management in the work place utliizes the hard skills to be a good manager. They are hard to please, if you want inspiration, often times you will need to inspire your self.
I found it important to motivate myself. Here is some examples, early in my career, the hard nosed highly hard skilled management at Xerox was kicking my ass. The beloved New York Yankees were playing the LA Dodgers in the World Series. Reggie Jackson had caught hell all year from the backlash of his record contract and over powering personality. 3 swings of the bat, 3 homeruns, which is still one of the most amazing sports feats ever! Seeing Reggie overcome his adversaries, inspired me to over come mine.
More recently, I was flicking through HBO and came across, Rocky Balboa, the latest in the Rocky series of movies. An aging ex champ signed to fight the new champ, Rocky told his concerned son, “it is not how often you get hit, it is how you can keep moving forward not matter how often you are hit!”
I was fired upped again and could not wait to take on the world.
The point is , you can find inspiration, you need to want it in your life. Do you have examples of your own?