Emery County Business Chamber: Successful business habits

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The Emery County Business Chamber Lunch and Learn was held on July 15, at the San Rafael Museum in Castle Dale. Commissioner Ethan Migliori opened the meeting and thanked Emery County Progress and Magnuson Lumber for providing the meal catered by KFJ C store from Cleveland for this event. The servers were Wynne Ann Cowley and MacKell Cowley. The KFJ C store is owned by Kerwin Jensen of Cleveland. It was a lunch of roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy, steamed vegetables and cake. Commissioner Migliori introduced Charity Stilson BEP, CBP as the featured business of the month in Emery County. Charity helps her customers improve their health. Her business name is “Balance Your Life Wellness, Body Talk and Elite Body Scan.” Charity has a computer program that scans the body and shows which parts need help to make the body healthier. Her phone number in Orangeville is 435-748-2352 or cjstilson@gmail.com.
Following the lunch Commissioner Migliori introduced Alan Christensen as the featured speaker for this event. Christensen is a certified facilitator and has taught the Seven Habits of Successful Small Business Managers, program more than any other facilitator in the nation. He is a director for the Utah Small Business Development Center and as a consultant has worked with successful small businesses from New York to California. He has trained people all across this nation.
“The 7 Habits for Small Business” is based on a best selling book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” by Stephen R. Covey.
Several years ago, Covey recognized that his business was missing a large segment of business by not having a program for small businesses. Their business model had been focusing on large businesses with their four-day $1,600 program for large businesses.
The Stephen R Covey Company then set out to train 30 or 40 members from the Utah Small Business Development Centers as facilitators. They were to train companies of fewer than 300 employees. Covey did not invent any new principles. He just organized existing principles that we can use regularly in our life.
The theme of the small business program is managing yourself, leading others and unleashing your potential. Christensen said it would be impossible to turn a 2-day class into a 30-minute discussion. This 30 minute presentation will give you a taste of what the two-day workshop would include.
In the world renowned Franklin Covey training program, business owners, managers and key employees gain life changing knowledge and skills, plus the tools to help apply them. Learning and using these habits will help you manage yourself, lead others and unleash potential you never knew existed in your business. You will have less stress get more accomplished and be more profitable.
Christensen started his presentation with the introduction of the importance of managing yourself. Managing yourself is something you really need to be able to do before you can lead other people. If you don’t have a foundation of self-management in a small business, the business won’t last. In our poll titled, “Where Do I Struggle The Most” with three categories: self-management, leading others, or neither. Self-management was the concern of 57 percent of those responding. Only 14 percent felt that leading others was a problem and 29 percent felt neither area was a problem.
Managing yourself has to do with the first three habits, 1. Be proactive, 2. Begin with the end in mind and 3. Put first things first. The next three habits have to do with leading others, 4. Think win-win, 5. Seek first to understand and then to be understood and 6. Synergize, an example would be two oxen pulling together. Two people working together can accomplish a lot more than an individual working alone.
One difficult habit to learn is that of listening to others. Another habit to develop is trust and confidence in those around you. Abraham Lincoln said, it is better to trust and be disappointed sometimes, than to distrust and be miserable all the time.
Your choices determine your own destiny.
Christensen then introduced the book. “It is Your Ship,” authored by Captain D. Michael Abrashoff and explained Abrashoff took command of the worst ship in the Pacific Fleet and made it the best ship within 18 months. His ship achieved the highest gunnery score in history, and 19 days to complete the pre-deployment cycle. The usual cycle was 50 days. The retention rate on his ship for career sailors was 100 percent.
When Abrashoff took command of that ship. He recognized that it was the worst ship and he had a vision of what he wanted that ship to be. Instead of a top-down management approach, he used a horizontal management approach. This gave the sailors the autonomy to do their best.
Ask yourself what is the contribution I’m going to make in achieving my goals and what is the contribution I am going to make in my company or in my employment. What is required of me at work, what am I passionate about or what do I love to do and what are my talents? Where do those items overlap. You will be able to make great contributions.
In a survey titled my job taps into the best of my talents and passions. Of those responding 86 percent said no or sort of. Only 14 percent said my job taps into my best talents and passions. You will feel more energetic, happier and your employer gets far more out of you and people like working with you when those items overlap. An employer should try to find a way to bring that out in his employees.
Help your employees learn to manage themselves.
“Stephen R Covey said you have to know what your highest priorities are and have the courage, pleasantly, smiling, non-apologetically, to say no to other things. And the way you do that is by having a bigger yes burning inside.”
Owners and managers of small businesses wear so many hats, and they are so busy with so much going on, they’re running themselves ragged. High priorities can be a burden. Other things are important too, maybe or maybe not and they are often urgent. That is why we can become easily distracted away from our goals or priorities. The percentage of work on your highest priorities should range from 30 to 50 percent.
Examine weekly your wildly important goals or WIGs and act upon them daily. Like if this doesn’t get done nothing else matters.
A wildly important goal for an airport screener would be, don’t let the guy with the bomb, get on the plane.
Establishing a win-win mindset in the business with, desired results, set guidelines, provide resources, expect accountability, and have consequences.
Two classic mistakes management makes are first they try to manage others before effectively managing themselves. The second classic mistake is trying to manage others before making known what is expected and let them manage themselves.
Christensen ended by quoting Stephan R. Covey’s statement. “Be a light, not a judge. Be a model, not a critic” More information about this program can be received by calling 435-613-5440. The two day training will be held on Oct. 16-17 at the Utah State University Eastern campus in Price.