STEP 6: ORGANIZED PLANNING: THE CRYSTALLIZATION OF DESIRE INTO ACTION
Recall that one of the steps required to create a burning desire for riches is to make a definite, practical plan that can turn your desire into actual riches.
To build a practical plan, do the following:
1. Form a group of as many persons you need to create and carry out your plan.
2. Before selecting members for your group, decide what you will offer them in return for their cooperation. No one will work for long without some form of compensation.
3 Meet with your group at least twice a week or more if possible until you have perfected the necessary plan to achieve the goal.
4. Maintain perfect harmony among every member of your group.
Key Point No. 22: No one person can succeed without the help of others’ experiences, education, skills, and imagination to create practical plans.
Every plan you create to further your ultimate goal should be approved by every member of your group. If your first plan does not work, replace it with a new plan, and so on, until you find a plan that does work. This is when most people find failure because they lack the persistence needed to create new plans to replace every plan that fails.
Key Point No. 23: Rework your plans as often as needed to achieve your ultimate goal because the soundness of your plans determines how far you can go.
Edison created and tested 10,000 plans that did not work until he found the one that did for a long-burning light bulb. Temporary defeats should only mean one thing—that there is still something wrong with your plan.
Key Point No. 24: Quitters never win, and winners never quit.
PLANNING THE SALE OF SERVICES
Intelligent planning is a prerequisite to achieve any ultimate goal involving great riches. Provided here are detailed instructions on how to accumulate wealth by selling personal services. Almost all great fortunes began with the sale of personal services or ideas. How else would someone without money or property become rich?
First, ask yourself if you want to be a leader or a follower in your chosen field. Leaders deserve far more income, even though many followers mistakenly expect the same pay. There is nothing wrong with being a follower as long as you intelligently follow your leaders to learn all you can from them so you can become a leader more quickly.
TRAITS OF SUCCESSFUL LEADERS
The traits you will need to develop to become a successful leader are the following:
1. CONSTANT COURAGE – Intelligent followers will not stay with leaders who lack self-confidence or courage.
2. SELF-CONTROL – Intelligent followers respect and emulate leaders with self-control.
3. STRONG SENSE OF JUSTICE – Fairness and justice attract loyal followers.
4. DECISIVENESS – Uncertainty is perceived as a weakness and irksome to followers.
5. DEFINITE PLANS – Leaders without definite practical plans are doomed to fail.
6. EXCEPTIONAL WORK ETHICS – Good leaders do more than they ask of their followers.
7. PLEASANT PERSONALITY – Good leaders must look and act pleasant for their followers.
8. SYMPATHY AND EMPAHTY – Good leaders understand their followers and their problems.
9. MASTERY OF DETAILS – Good leaders master the details of their position.
10. ACCOUNTABILITY – Good leaders take full responsibility for the mistakes of their followers. If a follower is incompetent, then it is the leader’s failure for selecting that person for the job or for failing to adequately train or supervise that person.
11. COOPERATION – Good leaders establish cooperation amongst their followers to obtain desired results. Leadership requires power, and power requires a cooperative effort.
TRAITS OF UNSUCCESSFUL LEADERS
It is just as important to know what not to do as it is to know what to do to become a successful leader. Here are the major traits that cause leaders to fail:
1. CANNOT ORGANIZE DETAILS – Efficient leadership requires the ability to organize and master all the details related to his position. Thus, the successful leader must delegate many details to trusted assistants. Good leaders are never “too busy” to perform any of their leadership duties. When leaders (or followers) admit they are “too busy” to give attention to an emergency, they admit their inefficiency.
2. WILL NOT PERFORM CERTAIN TASKS – Good leaders are willing to do anything they ask others to do, no matter how lowly the task, if the situation requires it.
3. EXPECT MONEY FOR THEIR KNOWLEDGE ALONE – The world pays people for what they do or get others to do, not merely for what they know.
4. FEAR COMPETITION FROM THEIR FOLLOWERS – Leaders who fear that one of their followers will take their positions someday are destined to suffer this outcome eventually. On the other hand, good leaders train their followers to take over every detail of their positions so they can oversee many more things at many different places at the same time. The ability to get others to perform is more valuable than performing the same tasks yourself. Good leaders, through mastery of the details of their jobs and other positive leadership traits, can increase their followers’ productivity without their direct supervision.
5. NO IMAGINATION – Without imagination, leaders cannot create plans to guide their followers efficiently and cannot handle any emergencies.
6. TAKES ALL THE CREDIT – Followers resent leaders who take all the credit for their hard work. Good leaders will give all the credit to their followers because most people work harder for money plus recognition than they do for money alone.
7. EXCESSIVE DRINKING, EATING, OR SEX – Not only is excessive drinking, eating, or sex bad for your health, followers do not respect leaders who indulge in these.
8. DISLOYAL – Leaders who are disloyal to those above them and those below them cannot maintain their positions for long.
9. LEADING BY FORCE – Good leaders encourage their followers by showing their mastery of the details of their jobs and by being fair and reasonable with them, not by trying to impress their followers with their authority.
10. UNAPPROACHABLE – Good leaders do not put too much emphasis on their titles or shut their doors to their followers.
