Our SWOT at IT Matters is now over and I am very excited about what the future has to offer our great company. IT Matters is an awesome and wonderful organization to be part of, maybe some of our normal small business challenges have influenced my thinking away from this in the past. (BTW, I am not alone here; many small business owners experience this). It is very critical for me to be committed to the success of our company. I have 30 people that I am responsible to (not for).
What did I learn over the past couple of days?
One, my leadership skills still needs a lot of work. Arlin, Brad and Dan guided me in a direction that I figured this out for myself. Have I come along with since maybe 3 or 4 years ago, for sure, is there more to be developed absolutely? One of my goals for the end of this year to sign up for some leadership training and commit to taking it an excelling at it, this will provide me with the skills to perform my role at IT Matters with a lot more effectiveness and proficiency.
Two, focus, focus, focus. It is true, I do have a lot on the go right now and it even frustrates me on the amount of time some of other activities are taking and actually not making me any money. I love my mentoring and I will continue to do that, I will cap the amount of people I help so I can focus on IT Matters. My goal is to take IT Matters financially to the next level by doing $300,000 in sales each month (FY09) goal.
Three, communicate, communicate and communicate some more. Arlin even said that I need to communicate more internally; I think he said I was lousy at it. I need to do a much better job at this. Now, this does mean increasing the amount of email that I send out, or voice mails that I leave for people. This means having a clear and concise message so that no one misunderstands the meaning of what I am looking for or trying to share. It is time to go deeper to a new level with communications.
Did I learn a lot about my partners and my company over the past couple of days? Absolutely. Do I know and have the confidence that IT Matters has what it takes to win once again in the Calgary small business market? For sure. Will I do what it takes to provide and serve the IT Matters team, our clients and our partners? No doubt about it!
The funny thing besides the leadership lesson, I knew this stuff already, I just needed someone from outside the business and my family to remind me. Thanks…the hard work is now beginning!
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