The Good Ole Days!

The tough thing about the Good Ole Days is nobody really knows when they are in the midst of them. We simply revel it what was but we don’t seem to comprehend what is, when it is. This happens because the Good Ole Days are only good compared to what is going on right now. So its only when we go back in time, and look up and to the right and solemnly think, “man, those were the Good Ole Days”. At this point, its too late.

The good news is the Good Ole Days don't just happen. Its not like people win the work lottery of life and slide into the Good Ole Days backwards. The Good Ole Days, like anything, have to be created. In order to create them, you have to first understand what makes the Good Ole Days good. Many people think that the Good Ole Days existed because they had friends at work. You went to work did your work but did it among friends therefore the work didn’t matter. It was fun. You could have been cleaning a garbage dump and when you are with friends it’s the Good Ole Days. I agree in theory but working with friends is simply the byproduct of the Good Ole Days, not the cause. The one single item required to experience the Good Ole Days is a group of people working for a common goal. Did I say “working” towards a common "goal"? Well that’s a mistake. I meant, Committed to a common Vision. The work and friendships are byproducts of the commitment to a common vision, and the commitment is the genesis of the Good Ole Days. The common commitment is what created the friendships and then whatever the work is takes on a life of a Purpose; it’s no longer work. These, my friends, are the Good Ole Days.

Now we know what it is, how do we get there? You have to have a vision and vision comes from a good leadership. When I arrived at eLeadOne to run operations I quickly realized there were numerous visions. Almost as many as high level employees! Imagine a wagon being pulled by horses but instead of having the horses aligned each horse is attached to a different side of the wagon. The wagon didn’t move very far and horses don’t pull sideways with any significant strength. What makes a wagon move is the front end of a horse pointing in the right direction. At eLeadOne I quickly defined vision for the 200 plus employees. “We do two things at eLeadOne”, I began stating as many times as I could, “we sell product and we retain customers”. The key to a clear vision is simplicity and this was a simple vision that everybody could agree on. Not only did it challenge the sales team, selling product meant software development had to create product that was market ready and bug free and retaining customers was a challenge for support as well as development. Remember, support isn’t a department at the end of an 800 number. Support is a company mindset. You have to understand that it’s easy to sell software in a boardroom but it needed to be written in a way that it was operational on a sales floor. This simple vision aligned the horses and the wagon took off. We were able to grow revenue by double digit percentages each year in a ten-year time span and most of those years we were in a recession! People became lifelong friends and the work took on Purpose. People that once were merely compliant to the work became committed to the purpose. Voila, now you have the Good Ole Days!

Yes, it took more than stating a vision. It took a tenacious leadership to back the vision and getting all the employees committed to the purpose but we did. We went from 200 employees to 1,600 employees and retaining the vision when you are hiring at this speed takes a tremendous amount of mentoring with middle managers and growing them to distribute the vision downstream. It didn’t just happen. It takes a leader to create the Good Ole Days. My challenge to you is clear. 

Have you clearly and simply defined what your vision is? The simpler it is the clearer it is.

Is that vision understood and agreed upon by your horses? They must pull the wagon in the same direction.

Are you a leader that can move people from complaint to committed?

Can your horses do the same? If they can’t, they need to move aside. We used to call it, “putting them on the roof” and we had some roof dwellers.

Are you managing things, when you should be leading people? Managing things is alot easier but far less productive.

The rest of the story. In that 10 year time span we took a struggling software company to a software giant in the automotive space eventually putting the owners in a spot where they could sell the company for nearly $600,000,000. Its unheard of but also a byproduct of the Good Ole Days.

When you quit looking back at the Good Ole Days with nostalgia and decide that you are going to create the Good Ole Days today, things have to change, and the most important change has to be within you. The commitment begins within.