Day 3 - Look for the Derailers

I once had a great mentor and coach who said to me, “Any CEO that reads the Wall Street Journal should not be surprised when and if their company slips, falls or fails.” John, my mentor, said that ever challenge, situation, strategy, approach can be found well defined and described in the news. It doesn’t matter the size of the business, relationship or community, it’s up to each of us to pay attention, look for the corollaries or trends that are happening in today’s world. Most often, they are happening, or about to happen in our own world, work or life. His preference - The Wall Street Journal.

Here are some common derailers that I have found show up over the course of time.

These are the obvious:

 Lack of vision.
 Knowing the vision and failing to focus.
 Not knowing our attributes, interests, motivators, talents and strengths
 Knowing those talents, strengths and attributes and failing to leverage them

Now let's go deeper:

 Not having a strategic plan
 Having a plan and not following that plan
 Not being clear on our core values
 Knowing those values and not living up to those values
 Not knowing what is critical to the success of our work, our life, our community
 Knowing what is critical to our success and ignoring them
 Not setting goals or actions plans
 Having goals but not taking action
 Not knowing our resources
 Inappropriately using those resources
 Not understanding accountability
 Understanding and choosing not to assume accountability


These derailers are pretty generic and yet I have seen them and others crop up over the course of my life. Expand your sources, I know I have and still do. There are a plethora of opportunities to help us find the derailers to our success.

Look for your derailers and discover what is preventing you from being that extraordinary CEO in your work and life. I'd love to hear more derailers - this is only the short list.

Day 4 - Set Your Strategy