What is a company’s most valuable asset? Is it talent, intelligence, a strong-selling product or a good business plan?
In his new book, “Just Shut Up and DO IT! 7 Steps to Conquer Your Goals,” best-selling business author Brian Tracy argues that while all these are important, success lies with one single asset: reputation.
Backed by research from Harvard Business School, Tracy proposes that a company’s most valuable asset is what people say about the company to other customers as well as to potential customers.
And while technology, information and other needs continue to change rapidly, reputation remains. Companies like Apple and Google are leaders due to their reputations. When reputation falters such as recently with Wells Fargo Bank and EpiPen-maker Mylan, the consequences can be dire.
Tracy applies reputation’s importance equally to individuals. Your reputation is essentially how people think and talk about you and how well they think you work, he says. This year could be seen as a study of reputation building or demise as national campaign elections continue.
By Tracy’s definition, the most vital part of reputation is the ability to get things done.
“In its simplest terms,” he writes, “your ability to get started and to keep going is the key to winning, to happiness, to a great reputation, and to success in life.”
The author starts by addressing the obstacles to success. Nearly 95 percent of what you do, or fail to do, is determined by habits. A major obstacle to success is that most people have negative habits that hold them back from reaching their potential. Because habits are learned patterns, they can be unlearned and replaced with positive ones.
The starting point is to challenge the automatic assumptions you continually make.
This applies equally to a company or an individual. Self-limiting beliefs about how the organization defines and sees its potential will hold it back from success.
Fully 80 percent of the population’s state of mind is passive, tethered to a sense of helplessness and negativity, Tracy says. The reason for such negativity comes down to one root cause: blame. We hold the belief that if some people are successful others have to be failures. There is a simple and eff ective way to stop the blame game: take responsibility.
Overcoming procrastination is another one of Tracy’s “7 Steps.” Success is simple: Start a job and finish it. Procrastination, a habit most of us learn in childhood, is perhaps the No. 1 reason for failure. Everyone procrastinates, Tracy says, just on different things. Successful people procrastinate on things of the lowest value, on the 80 percent of tasks that represent 20 percent of results. Most people procrastinate on the 20 percent.
While procrastination can’t be completely eliminated, Tracy urges people to “practice creative procrastination.” This is achieved by consciously deciding not to do the low-value activities until the higher value ones are completed.
Tracy offers a list of “tricks” to play on yourself to overcome procrastination. Among them are:
1. Salami-slice the task. Slice off a small piece of the task and complete it.
2. Swiss cheese technique. Like a hole in Swiss cheese, punch a hole in your task and work for 5 to 10 minutes on it.
3. Use the 20/80 rule. Simply put, 20 percent of what you do accounts for 80 percent of your results.
4. Focus on each task. Select the most important task and work on it first.
The author encourages readers to “get started and keep going,” and never give up. “Persistence and determination have always been the most important qualities for success,” he says. “The more you persist, the stronger you become. The stronger you become, the more you are able to persist.”
It can be argued that Tracy’s seven-part method is simplistic. Yet he provides a set of proven guidelines that can help accelerate work achievements and personal success that anyone can follow. His approach reinforces the idea that sometimes the best advice is the simplest.
Tracy ends on a high note, stating that it is a great time to be alive, a time of great opportunities for businesses. For the individual, there has never been better prospects to start a new business or advance a career. The secret to success is simple he says: “Just Shut Up and Do It!”