Can principles that work for business be applied equally for success in our personal lives?
Numerous writers have extracted insights from business that ambitiously suggest that when grafted to the personal could create the lives we want. From time management to leadership, business principles seem uniquely adaptable to help us defi ne who we are as well as our goals for the future. After all, such principles have been successful in growing businesses, why not in building our lives?
Perhaps best known for successful transference of this kind is Stephen Covey’s classic “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.” Covey approached both capacities of professional and personal as equal parts of success. His message engaged millions of readers around the globe and inspired innumerable business authors.
Greg Brenneman’s just-released book “Right Away and All at Once: Five Steps to Transform Your Business and Enrich Your Life,” is a landmark manifesto in the challenge of finding balance in the life/work continuum. It reveals a list of principles developed through personal experience, study and historic perspective, presenting them in the context of one individual’s dramatic success.
Brenneman is chairman, president and CEO of the private equity firm CCMP and is known as one of the leading business turnaround executives in the world. He led turnarounds at Continental Airlines, Burger King and PwC Consulting. He also served on the boards of directors of several large firms, notably ADP and J. Crew. His mentors, highlighted in each chapter, read like a who’s who list of world business and political leaders. They include the late U.S. Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, President George H.W. Bush, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, as well as the founders of Home Depot.
With this impressive business background, Brenneman chooses to approach his topic wearing two hats — one as high-level executive and the other as a parent, coach and individual seeking a meaningful life. His approach is pragmatic but his challenge is essential: to create business and personal success in ways that most of us desire.
Brenneman recommends Five Basic Steps to be applied right away and all at once to meet this challenge:
1. Have a plan and track your progress. Identify the three to five actions that will fundamentally improve the business. Write a one-page plan, communicating them to your organization, and relentlessly measure your progress.
2. Build a fortress balance sheet. Make sure you have adequate time to execute your plan by having plenty of liquidity (cash).
3. Think money in, not money out. Profitably grow your business to optimize returns for your shareholders and employment opportunities for co-workers.
4. Build a team. Create an organization that can execute the plan by motivating everyone involved.
5. Let the inmates run the asylum. Empower and motivate employees to make decisions consistent with the plan.
While the impact of these steps has been proven in business, Brenneman says he understood their effectiveness in a new way when he applied them to his own life. The author used these principles for more than 30 years in business with dramatic results, even during the 2008 financial crisis. Then, 10 years ago he applied them to improving his life and says he saw great effect in all areas — friends, family, fitness and finance.
Brenneman has dubbed the one-page plan the “Go Forward Plan.” Every such plan is built on four cornerstones: market, financial, product, and people. In business, he says the plan is vital to help communication in the company.
This five-point basic strategy has been used to turn around all types of companies. It is the first step for turning around any business or, the author suggests, any life. Just as the Go Forward Plan at Continental built guidelines for a turnaround that succeeded after two decades of losing money, it can enable the individual to achieve success.
“The whole reason for putting together a one-page plan is to help you clearly identify your blue chips, and then to develop a workable strategy to ensure that you focus on them,” Brenneman states.
“Blue chips” are the value drivers, the important things in life. Without prioritizing the blue chips in business, you lose focus on your business’ success. Doing so in life can mean ending up “with a life of ‘achievements’ that in retrospect will have mattered hardly at all,” Brenneman concludes.
The author’s dual approach to his subject is what makes “Right Away and All At Once” a refreshing, vital read. He sets forth a set of ambitious challenges: build the best businesses we can while simultaneously create the lives we want to lead. And what better time to begin than right away?