Do you remember the 1991 movie City Slickers? Billy Crystal was a street-wise city dweller on a cattle drive vacation in the American west with Jack Palance as the leathery old cattle hand. Crystal was in search of meaning for his life. Palance offered this advice, “Remember the one thing.” Of course, he never told Billy–or us–what that one thing was. But deep down, each of us has a one thing we must remember, the one thing that gives meaning to our lives, and we probably already know what it is. Our business life is similar.

What is the one thing that, if you did it, you know would yield superior results for your business? It is something that, done right, would profoundly impact your bottom-line. It might be inventory variance; it might be increased customer satisfaction, or increased production. What one thing, if you and your people really focused on it, would make such a positive impact on your business you would be negligent not to do it?

Like I said, you probably already know what it is. But, for some reason, you haven’t made the effort to act on it. This one thing may have been a bullet point on the last several business plans, but it fell through the cracks in the day-to-day. (Be careful: if you say something is important and then don’t do anything about it, you are putting your credibility and integrity at risk.) Now that you have it in mind, what are you going to do about it?

I encourage you to have a message every month and to stay on message to make sure your key points get through. The One Thing takes talking points a step further. It is the Uber Talking Point. You want to keep talking about it, investigating it, shining light on it, and shouting out loud about it—because it is that one thing that will make your business truly outstanding.
In the past 90 days, many of you have engaged in strategic and business planning. In these sessions, you may have mentioned your one thing. But, unless you make it a priority, chances are it will fall to the wayside, just like in years past.

Now is the time to get together with your teams, re-commit to your plan, and elevate the one thing to the highest level. And watch it make your business soar!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 6th, 2009 at 10:39 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.