Here’s the biggest problem I see in business today …
We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom.
So, here’s some wisdom for you from a guy by the name of Harrington Emerson …
“As to methods, there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.”
The vocab is a bit weird I know because that’s a quote from 1911.
In case you haven’t heard of him, back in the day Harrington Emerson was described as “one of the most celebrated efficiency engineers in the world” – so a smart guy!
Now I’ve met and worked with many smart and successful people over the last 30 years and I’ve noticed that a common denominator of success is wisdom.
This wisdom always shows up in the form of principles – just like Emerson spoke about over 100 years ago.
These principles are truths that are born out of experience and become operating rules that they use to evaluate and guide their behavior.
One of my clients was a hugely successful property investor. His number one operating rule was ‘you make money when you buy, not when you sell’. That principle – a mantra I heard him repeat over and over again – guided his decision-making over which deals to pursue. When he couldn’t buy at a low enough price, a price he ‘knew’ he could make money at when he sold the property later, he’d walk away from the deal.
And that meant standing by and letting a competitor ‘snap up’ the deal.
This is a classic example of how principles enable you to remove emotion from your decision-making, allowing you to act independently of the crowd who are almost certainly acting on emotion.
This emotionally detached, principle-based approach to evaluating situations and decision-making can be seen over and over again in successful people.
Warren Buffett is famous for his investing principles. One of which is …
‘Only buy stocks that you understand’ … which could be restated as, if you don’t know anything about the business or industry, don’t invest in a stock just because everyone else is getting in on it.
That’s wise, don’t you think?
So, take a step back and identify what the fundamental principles are that are going to make you a wiser CEO.