by Dr. John C. Maxwell

H.P. Liddon said, "What we do on some great occasions will probably depend upon what we already are, and what we are will be the result of previous years of self-discipline." I believe that with all of my heart.

Discipline is doing what you really do not want to do, so you can do what you really want to do. What makes it hard is that in our own human nature, we do not want to do certain things, and so therefore, what happens is we have a tendency to be undisciplined in the areas that we do not care to do.

Three areas to develop discipline:

1. Disciplined Thinking.
George Bernard Shaw said, "Few people think more than two or three times a year. I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week."

I am in the process of writing a new book. The whole book is based on the idea that people who understand how to get to the top and stay there are people who think their way to the top.

One of the major differences in this discipline of thinking is that people that think their way to the top have the ability to do what I call "sustained thinking." They have the ability to think on an issue for a long period of time, until that issue becomes clear on the decision that should be made.

People who do not think their way to the top have the unwillingness of discipline to master sustained thinking. They will think about something for a while, and then they will get off it and go on to something else.

They have never learned how to discipline their thoughts by writing them down. I always keep a pad with me of things that I am thinking. I write thoughts down so that I can stay concentrated and disciplined in that area.

2. Disciplined Emotions.
We have choices when it comes to our emotions:
1. We can master them, or
2. They can master us.

I was playing golf the other day at East Lake Country Club, a great golf course here in Atlanta. It is known for being the links where Bobby Jones played. As you may or may not know, he is a legendary golfer who won a major tournament at twenty-one. By age twenty-eight, he had already won the grand slam and retired.

Jones had an uncle who said that by the time he was fourteen, Bobby was probably already the best golfer in the world. He certainly was popular. However, Jones was also known for his temper because he would throw his clubs when he got irritated. Jones’s uncle sat down with him and said, "Bobby, your problem is you’ve mastered the game of golf, but you haven’t mastered your emotions; and until you master your emotions, you’ll never be a champion in golf."

3. Disciplined Actions.
I call the two actions of initiating and closing the "bookends of success" because I really think they are.

I know some that can initiate but they can never close; I know some people that can close but they can never get it cranked up. You have to kick start them every time. When you can do both, initiate and close, you have the bookends to success.

Allow me to leave you with this closing thought about developing discipline: you cannot give what you do not have, and self-improvement precedes team improvement.

The only way that I can keep leading is to keep growing. The day I stop growing, somebody else takes the leadership baton. That is the way it always is.

– John C. Maxwell

Banyak pimpinan perusahaan mengeluh, mengapa anak buah yang dikirim untuk mengikuti pelatihan, seminar dsb nya, hasilnya tak signifikan dengan peningkatan kinerjanya. Agak sulit memang, bagi seorang pembicara seminar selain dituntut dapat menularkan ilmunya, juga harus bisa bertindak sebagai entertainer. Apabila si pembicara tak dapat menarik minat peserta, nilai evaluasi akan rendah, namun di satu sisi seminar yang dibawakan secara menarik belum tentu sesuai dengan yang diharapkan oleh perusahaan.

Evaluasi yang dilakukan pada umumnya masih bersifat evaluasi dari peserta pelatihan, dengan cara mengisi kuestioner apakah pelatihan dimaksud sesuai dengan bidang kerjanya, apakah penyajiannya baik, akomodasi bagus dsb nya. Sedangkan evaluasi yang dilakukan oleh staf, berupa laporan hasil seminar yang ditujukan kepada perusahaan pada umumnya bernilai “baik”, dengan harapan staf tadi dapat dikirim lagi ke seminar atau pelatihan berikutnya.

Pada dasarnya, evaluasi setiap program pelatihan dapat dilakukan, dengan memperoleh feedback dari peserta, yang dapat dibagi menjadi 4 (empat) level, sebagai berikut:

1. Evaluasi pada tingkat reaksi (Reaction level). Pada evaluasi ini yang diukur dan dinilai adalah reaksi peserta. Dalam hal ini diukur tingkat kepuasan peserta terhadap program pelatihan yang diselenggarakan, sehingga dapat dilakukan perbaikan atas program tersebut.
2. Evaluasi pada tingkat pembelajaran (Learning Level). Evaluasi ini dilakukan dengan tujuan utama mengukur seberapa jauh perubahan kompetensi para peserta segera setelah pelatihan berakhir, sebelum mereka kembali bekerja. Dengan kata lain, tujuan evaluasi pada tingkat ini adalah peningkatan kompetensi peserta dalam kelas dan untuk mengidentifikasikan keberhasilan komponen sistem pelatihan (metode, materi, dll).
3. Evaluasi pada tingkat perilaku dalam pekerjaan (On the job behavioral Level). Evaluasi pada tingkat ini yang diukur adalah pengaruh program pelatihan terhadap penerapannya ditempat kerja. Dengan kata lain, tujuan evaluasi pada tahap ini adalah perbaikan perilaku peserta dalam pekerjaan.
4. Evaluasi pada tingkat hasil (Result level). Evaluasi ini dilakukan dengan tujuan untuk mengukur seberapa jauh peningkatan produktivitas yang dicapai pekerja, serta unit kerja, setelah mengikuti program pelatihan. Atau untuk menentukan apakah manfaat pelatihan lebih tinggi dibanding dengan biaya yang telah dikeluarkan.

Pada umumnya kita baru bisa mengukur pada tahap 3, karena untuk menilai sesuai tahap 4 dibutuhkan data base yang bagus, serta keterlibatan dengan pimpinan unit kerja yang telah mengirimkan stafnya ke pelatihan tersebut. Bagi yang ditempatkan di unit kerja yang profit oriented, mereka pada umumnya telah disibukkan dengan target-target bisnis, sehingga tak memungkinkan untuk melibatkan diri secara aktif, baik melalui kuestioner ataupun melalui penilaian langsung, apakah hasil pelatihan dapat diaplikasikan di bidang pekerjaannya.

Kita menyadari, bahwa SDM merupakan aset perusahaan, dan untuk meningkatkan kemampuan dan kualitas SDM, antara lain bisa diperoleh melalui pendidikan dan pelatihan. Oleh karena itu diperlukan campur tangan dari Manajemen perusahaan, agar proses evaluasi pendidikan dan pelatihan ini dapat berjalan lancar. Apalagi bagi perbankan, terdapat aturan Bank Indonesia, bahwa minimal setiap Bank harus mencadangkan 5% dari BTK (Biaya Tenaga Kerja) untuk mendidik para karyawannya.

Apabila kita melihat laporan keuangan publikasi Bank-bank , terlihat bahwa angka BTK cukup tinggi, oleh karena itu besarnya biaya pendidikan yang dikeluarkan harus diimbangi dengan hasil yang dapat diaplikasikan dilapangan. Disadari, ada pendidikan yang bersifat konseptual, yang hasilnya tak dapat dilihat langsung, namun akan terlihat pada beberapa tahun kedepan. Pendidikan yang bersifat aplikatif akan langsung terlihat hasilnya, minimal terjadi penurunan tingkat kesalahan, atau kinerja unit kerja tersebut meningkat.

(excerpted from the 2004 Weekend Event)

Review your performance. Whether it’s communication, whether it’s activity, whether it’s a CEO, whether it’s on the job. Here’s what my father said, "Always do more than you are paid for to make an investment in your future." Now some unions would argue with that. My father was so unique. Review your performance–your language with your children. Say, "Have I been too harsh, too strong, too stubborn? Should I have learned to be easier and mixed more compassion with the tough stuff I have to deal with?" And yes, prayer will help. Ask for help to say the right thing, not to ruin it all by poor communication.

Face your fears. That’s how you conquer them. Don’t dismiss them; face them. Say, "Here’s what I’m afraid of. I wonder what I could do to change that."

Exercise your willpower to change direction. You don’t have to keep doing what you’ve been doing the last 6 years if it’s not yielding the benefits you want. My mentor helped me review the last six years so I wouldn’t repeat those errors the next six. Pick a new destination and go that way. Use your willpower to start the process. You don’t have to repeat last year. Clean up the errors. Invest it now in the next year. Watch it make the difference.

Admit your mistakes. Sometimes you have to admit them to others. Parents have to do it. We ask our kids do it; we have to do it. Here are some of the best phrases in the English language, "I’m sorry." The reason those are good words is because they could start a whole new relationship. It could start two people going in a whole new direction. Simple, not easy. You get this done, the turnaround can be dramatic. The early years can be big in payoff.

Here’s the big one. Admit your mistakes to yourself. You don’t have to babble about them to everyone in the neighborhood. But it doesn’t hurt to sit down and have a conversation with yourself and say, "There’s no use kidding myself. Here’s where I really am. I’ve got pennies in my pocket and I’ve got nothing in the bank." That’s what I said after a Girl Scout left my door. I had a conversation with myself and I said, "I don’t want this to happen anymore."

Refine your goals. Start the process. Set some higher goals. Reach for some higher purpose. Go for something beyond what you thought you could do.

Believe in yourself. You’ve got to believe in God and you’ve got to believe in the community. You’ve got to believe in the possibilities. You’ve got to believe in the economy. You’ve got to believe that tomorrow can be better than today. Here’s the big one. Believe in yourself. There isn’t a skill you can’t learn; there isn’t a discipline you can’t try; there isn’t a class you can’t take; there isn’t a book you couldn’t read.

Ask for wisdom. This is communication of the highest source. Ask for wisdom that creates answers. Ask for the wisdom that creates faith to believe things are possible. Ask for wisdom to deal with the challenges for today and tomorrow, to deal with the challenges your family brings you. Don’t wish it was easier; wish you were better.

Conserve your time. Sometimes we get faked out. Bill Bailey says the average person says, "I’ve got twenty more years." No, Bill says you’ve got twenty more times. If you go fishing once a year, you’ve only got twenty more times to go fishing, not twenty years. That fakes you out.

Invest your profits. Here’s one of the philosophies that Mr. Shoaff gave me. Profits are better than wages. Wages make you a living, profits make you a fortune. Could we start earning profits while we make a living? The answer is yes.

Protect your family. These are troublesome times. At school–troublesome times. Protect your family as best you can from the hidden dangers, the lurking evil one.

Live with intensity. You might as well turn it up a notch or two. Invest more of you in whatever you do. Be a little stronger; be a little wiser. Step up your vitality contribution. Put everything you’ve got into everything you do and then ask for more vitality, more strength and more vigor, more heart and more soul.

Find your place. If you just work on a job, find the best place you can serve well, and sure enough they’ll ask you to occupy a better place. And if you keep doing a job well, do the very best you can. That’s your best way out. Here’s a Bible phrase. If you work on your gifts, they’ll make a place for you.

Demand integrity from yourself. Integrity is like loyalty. You can’t demand it of someone else; you can only demand it of yourself. Be the best example of loyalty, and you’ll get some loyal followers. Be the best example of integrity, and you’ll have people around you who have integrity. Lead the way.

Welcome the disciplines. Can’t give you much better advice than that because disciplines create the reality. Disciplines build cities. A well-disciplined activity creates abundance, creates uniqueness, productivity.

Fight for what’s right. It’s a fight we’re in. The story-teller says "And there was great war in heaven." One of the writers of later scripture said, "I fought a good fight." That’s extraordinary to be able to say. I fought for my kids, and I fought for what was right and I fought for good health, and I fought to protect my company and I fought for a good career that would bless my family. I fought a good fight. It’s good to fight the encroachment. Opposites are in conflict, and you’re in the middle. If you want something valuable, you’ve got to fight for it. Then this writer also said, "I fought a good fight and I kept the faith." See, that’s the deal. Keep faith with your family. Fight the enemy and keep faith. Fight the illness and keep faith. Fight the evil and keep faith. I can’t give you much better advice.

Jim Rohn

Finding A New Business Idea
By: Brian Tracy

Look for Opportunities
How do you find a new product or service, recognizing that 80 percent or more will be new in five years? Here’s a series of ideas. Number one, begin with yourself. Begin with your own talents, your abilities, your experience, knowledge, interest, background, education, and so on. Look carefully at your current work, your current business, your current position, or your current product or service. Seek for what is called your own acres of diamonds. Look under your own feet.

Look Into Yourself
Here’s a question. What qualities account for your greatest successes in life so far? What personal qualities and abilities have gotten you to where you are? And how could you apply those qualities and abilities to starting and building a new business?

If you already have a company, ask what are your companies’ talents, abilities, experience, knowledge, interest, background, and so on. What qualities and talents and abilities have enabled your company to succeed up to now? Where can you specialize? Where can you make a difference?

Identify What You Really Enjoy
Number two is look for a product or service about which you can really become enthusiastic. Sometimes people become wealthy by translating or transforming their hobbies into a business. You will be most successful doing something or marketing something that you really love.

Every product must have a champion. Every product or service must have someone in the business who really, really loves the product or service and is eager to get out and tell other people about it.

Improve On Something Else
Number three, look for something that is an improvement on an existing product or service, not something brand new. Look for something that’s cheaper or better quality. Or that has additional features or functions. Look for something that’s an improvement.

Remember improving an existing successful product or service is the fastest and surest way to build a successful business. An idea only needs to be ten percent new and better to capture substantial market share. Brand new products or services are very risky.

Be Willing to Work Hard
The fourth key to finding a new product or service is this. Don’t look for easy money. Don’t look for gimmicks or useless knickknacks. Don’t look for get-rich-quick schemes or rewards without working, because they’re aren’t any.

More people have wasted more time and more life and more money trying to find quick ways to make easy money than you can possibly imagine. So be willing to put in a lot of hard work before you start making real money in a business.

Success Takes Time
It takes two years to break even in the average business. It takes four years to show a profit. It takes maybe eight to ten years before it starts to generate real cash flow. So you have to be patient. If you’re impatient, what will happen is you’ll end up setting yourself further back than you can imagine.

Action Exercises
First, be prepared to research a lot of business ideas before you make a final decision. The first 10% of time that you spend doing your homework will save you 90% of the effort in getting results later on.

Second, look for something that you can make an improvement upon rather than something brand new. You are surrounded by ideas and opportunities for improvement if you can just identify them.

MOTIVATION FROM WITHIN
by Denis Waitley

Motivation is a contraction of motive and action. An inner force that compels behavior, it comes from within, not from any external circumstance. You know where you’re going because you have a compelling image inside, not a travel poster on the wall, a financial statement with a big bonus, or a slogan in the hall. The performance of many externally motivated individuals begins declining as soon as they win contests of one sort or another. I’ve personally witnessed this among Super Bowl champions and World Cup teams that lost the incentive to maintain their excellence after winning the cup, the honors, and the cash.

If you’re really committed to peak performance and leadership, you must motivate yourself from within. Studies of achievers show that inner drives for excellence and independence are far more powerful than desire for wealth, status or recognition.

The Inner Drive
Behavioral scientists have found that independent desire for excellence is the most telling predictor of significant achievement.

In other words, the success of our efforts depends less on the efforts themselves than on our motives. The most successful companies, like the most successful men and women in almost all fields, have achieved their greatness out of a desire to express what they felt had to be expressed. Often it was a desire to use their skills to their utmost in order to solve a problem. This is not to say that many of them did not also earn a great deal of money and prestige. William Shakespeare, Thomas Edison, Estee Lauder, Walt Disney, Oprah Winfrey, Sam Walton and Bill Gates all became wealthy. But far more than thoughts of profit, the key to their success was inspiration and inner drive by creating or providing excellence in a product or a service. All were motivated by the desire to produce the very best that was in them.

Go for the Inner Applause
The late Ray Kroc, a former neighbor of mine who founded McDonald’s Corporation when he was in his fifties, stressed the importance of people working for the inner satisfaction, not just for the money. Ray said most people find it difficult to associate applause with their work when they can’t hear literal applause – but the important applause should come from within. It is the faster heartbeat, the pride and satisfaction of accomplishment.

Kroc told the University of Southern California’s Business School that the first thing a business executive needs is love of an idea.

If you don’t love your concept, drop it. If you prostitute yourself at an early age by taking a job where the money is, you’ll be working for money all your life. Loving their work is particularly important for younger people. If they lose that love early, they may never grow to anywhere near their potential for self-actualization.

Hire People Who Have Empowered Themselves
An inner drive for excellence motivates you always to be the best you possible can in whatever you do. Leaders and managers should take special note hear. They must be careful in their use of external motivators – money, perks, prestigious offices and titles – in trying to inspire their team members and employees. Enduring motivation must always come ultimately from within the individual.

That’s why empowerment and vision are so crucial to team performance and quality. Their power and their vision, not those of the leader must compel team members. Interviewing potential members, you should look for internally motivated individuals who hold their work important for its own sake, who love their field or their industry, who seek the exhilaration of testing their limits and contributing to the world. Be wary if they show more interest in your compensation package than in their contribution package.

Commit to achieving peak performance and leadership, by motivating yourself from within!

Four Essentials for Happiness
By: Brian Tracy

You may have a thousand different goals over the course of your lifetime, but they all will fall into one of four basic categories. Everything you do is an attempt to enhance the quality of your life in one or more of these areas.

The Key to Happiness
The first category is your desire for happy relationships. You want to love and be loved by others. You want to have a happy, harmonious home life. You want to get along well with the people around you, and you want to earn the respect of the people you respect. Your involvement in social and community affairs results from your desire to have happy interactions with others and to make a contribution to the society you live in.

Enjoy Your Work
The second category is your desire for interesting and challenging work. You want to make a good living, of course, but more than that, you want to really enjoy your occupation or profession. The very best times of your life are when you are completely absorbed in your work.

Become Financially Independent
The third category is your desire for financial independence. You want to be free from worries about money. You want to have enough money in the bank so that you can make decisions without counting your pennies. You want to achieve a certain financial state so that you can retire in comfort and never have to be concerned about whether or not you have enough money to support your lifestyle. Financial independence frees you from poverty and a need to depend upon others for your livelihood. If you save and invest regularly throughout your working life, you will eventually reach the point where you will never have to work again.

Enjoy Excellent Health
The fourth and final category is your desire for good health, to be free of pain and illness and to have a continuous flow of energy and feelings of well-being. In fact, your health is so central to your life that you take it for granted until something happens to disrupt it.

Peace of Mind is the Key
Peace of mind is essential for every one of these. The greater your peace of mind, the more relaxed and positive you are, the less stress you suffer, the better is your overall health.

The more peace of mind you have, the better are your relationships, the more optimistic, friendly and confident you are with everyone in your life. When you feel good about yourself on the inside, you do your work better and take more pride in it. You are a better boss and coworker. And the greater your overall peace of mind, the more likely you are to earn a good living, save regularly for the future and ultimately achieve financial independence.

Control Your Attention
Life is very much a study of attention. Whatever you dwell upon and think about grows and expands in your life. The more you pay attention to your relationships, the quality and quantity of your work, your finances and your health, the better they will become and the happier you will be.

Action Exercises
Here are three things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.

First, take time on a regular basis to think about what would make you really happy in each of the four areas.

Second, set specific, measurable goals for improvement in your relationships, your health, your work and your finances and write them down.

Third, resolve to do something every day to increase the quality of some area of your life - and then keep your resolution.

Menerapkan Performance Management Dashboard

sumber - http://strategimanajemen.net

Performance management dashboard pada dasarnya merupakan upaya untuk meng-otomatisasikan proses pengelolaan kinerja perusahaan melalui instalasi software yang didesain khusus untuk itu. Dinamakan dahsboard lantaran bentuk perangkat lunak yang diinstal biasanya mirip dengan "dashboard" mobil. Ibaratnya dengan hanya melihat dashboard itu kita langsung tahu kondisi mobil kita : apakah olinya sudah perlu diganti, berapa kecepatan laju mesin kita saat ini, berapa liter pemakaian bensin per 100 km, dst.

Performance dashboard persis ingin melakukan hal seperti itu : melalui aplikasi ini kita bisa melihat "denyut nadi" kinerja perusahaan kita dengan otomatis dan real time : berapa tingkat penjualan produk A di setiap region pada minggu ini, berapa jumlah transaksi per customers, berapa tingkat defect rate untuk produk B, berapa jumlah jam pelatihan per karyawan telah dilakukan, dst.

Proses otomatisasi tampaknya merupakan langkah lanjutan yang mesti diambil manakala perusahaan/kantor kita telah berhasil membangun pola pengelolaan kinerja berdasar key performance indicators (KPI-based performance management) atau juga melalui melalui pendekatan balanced scorecard (uraian mengenai balanced scorecard sudah pernah kita bahas DISINI ).

Penerapan performance management dashboard ini memiliki arti strategis setidaknya karena tiga alasan penting. Yang pertama, dari pengalama saya dalam proses pengembangan corporate performance management system, ternyata salah satu tahapan paling yang paling krusial adalah dalam aspek dokumentasi data pencapaian KPI (atau KPI data reporting). Sering kita sudah mendesain KPI sedemikian rupa dengan baik, namun kemudian proses pemantauan atau tracking-nya menjadi kedodoran lantara tidak didukung dengan sistem pelaporan yang baik dan sistematis. Dengan adanya sistem performance dashboard ini, kita akan sangat terbantu dalam proses monitoring data-data pencapaian kinerja ini.

Alasan yang kedua adalah ini : it’s a paperless era! Proses pengelolaan manajemen kinerja perusahaan tak jarang menenggelamkan kita dalam proses administratif yang penuh keribetan dengan tumpukan kertas yang bejibun. Bayangkan berapa lembar kertas yang kudu di-print ketika kita harus memantantau dan mengelola kinerja bulanan setiap divisi atau departemen (atau bahkan setiap karyawan) yang ada di perusahaan. Otomatisasi melalui performance dashboard akan men-streamline-kan semua keribetan itu. Proses kerja menjadi jauh lebih efisien, dan kita bisa bilang sayonara dengan tumpukan kertas yang acap menyergap setiap sudut meja kita.

Alasan yang terakhir dan paling penting adalah : performance management dashboard ini akan sangat membantu CEO dan top manajemen dalam proses pengambilan keputusan secara cepat dan akurat. Dengan hanya screen yang ada di depan mejanya dan beberapa klik, sang CEO dengan mudah dan real time bisa memantau semua aspek kinerja setiap divisi yang ada di perusahaan – mulai dari aspek finansial, aspek pelanggan, aspek proses bisnis dan aspek pengembangan SDM-nya. Didukung dengan kemampuan analitis yang ada dalam software tersebut, sang CEO juga dengan segera bisa melakukan analisa mengenai korelasi beragam variabel kinerja dan juga perkembangan tren-nya, apakah naik atau menurun.

Di tanah air sendiri, terdapat sejumlah perusahaan IT yang menawarkan solusi performance dashboard ini, antara lain adalah Microsoft Dynamics dan juga SAP (salah satu perusahaan penyedia software manajemen dan enterprise planning terbesar di dunia).  Harga yang ditawarkan oleh sejumlah vendor ini cukup variatif, mulai dari Rp 100 jutaan untuk 5 users license hingga Rp 1 milyar untuk 200 users. Masing-masing vendor menawarkan fitur yang beragam dan dapat disesuaikan dengan sistem manajemen kinerja yang telah diterapkan oleh perusahaan/kantor kita .

Mengelola kinerja perusahaan/organisasi dan juga kinerja SDM secara sistematis, terukur dan cerdas rasanya merupakan salah satu elemen penting untuk merajut keunggulan bisnis nan kompetitif. Dan penerapan performance management dashboard ini akan membawa langkah kita lebih dekat dalam perjalanan meraih keunggulan itu.

visit http://strategimanajemen.net  - sebuah blog inspiratif tentang human capital & business strategy