One question keeps coming up. People want to know what the successful among us do differently.

Anyone can be accidently successful for some period of time—you can have your fifteen minutes of fame. Leave success to chance, however, and you are more likely to never reach your goals.

Purposeful long-term success is never an accident. The people and organizations that achieve long-term durable success do things differently. Specifically, they do five things:

They engage in the planning process.
They set goals and objectives.
They develop plans for achieving those goals.
They prepare for opportunities and contingencies.
They measure progress and hold people accountable.

# # #

For signed copies of books by Tom Collins, go to the TomCollinsAuthor.com. Unsigned print and ebook editions are available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online bookstores. For an audio edition of The Claret Murders go to http://amzn.com/B00IV5ZJEI. Ebook editions are also available through Apple iTunes’ iBooks Store and Smashwords.com.
Published by I-65 North, Inc.

The controlling aspect of management is represented by the generally upward movement of the business chart. Controlling implies that the business achieves successive expectations, the Encore.

The Encore is a reality of business. Those who judge us expect successively higher results. Planners and managers must consider this expectation and generally manage to achieve it. It means keeping your powder dry. It means not operating on the razor's edge. It means building elasticity into the business. It means early warning systems and gap planning to make up shortfalls. The ENCORE expectation includes product innovation, customer satisfactions, etc. Thus, the manager must always think, "what do we do for an ENCORE?"

Controlling implies systems that avoid doing the wrong thing and that moves the business toward predetermined objectives through meeting successive expectations—encore after encore. It does the right things and generally does them in the right way.

Control means problem avoidance—putting systems, policies, and procedures in place that minimize problem occurrences. Problem avoidance can be further fostered through delegation. Managers should insist that a good measure of all problems be dealt with as close to the action as possible. A control system starts by setting a standard, then measuring the actual result, and adjusting the standard or actual as required. Excellent managers know the key factors that make their business successful and the key performance indications that tell them when the business is on or off course. They are unabashed believers in the power of goals. Higher goals result in successively higher achievements. They are always out to break records. They understand that every single member of the team impacts customer service and they look for ways to measure and reward individual performance in serving the organization’s customers. I have been blown away by the quality of white glove delivery service from companies like Macy’s department store. Not only do they exercise extraordinary care in delivery and setup, they talk to you as a customer—explain what they are doing. When they leave, they ask you to report to the company. “If you think we did a good job, let our company know.” Why?—because they are being measured and rewarded. They want to do a good job and to be recognized for it.

# # #

Mysteries by Tom Collins include Mark Rollins’ New Career, Mark Rollins and the Rainmaker, Mark Rollins and the Puppeteer and the newest, The Claret Murders. For signed copies go to http://store.markrollinsadventures.com. Print and ebook editions are available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other online bookstores. The ebook edition for the iPad is available through Apple iTunes' iBookstore.