My Top 20 business takeaways

One of the fun aspects of working with companies over my career was experiencing and witnessing human and organizational behavior.

Like many people, I learned quite a bit from my coworkers, bosses and industry peers. The lessons we all learn are hopefully put into practice to have more successful careers.

So here are my top 20 takeaways or lessons learned, (not in any particular order) about work and organizations:

1. Some people want to get paid for performance until they start getting paid for performance.

2. Trust is essential if you plan to develop and maintain a great workplace.

3. If you want to know about a product, ask the service person — not the sales person.

4. The job market is always good if you know exactly what you want, conduct a focused, well-organized job search and out-hustle your competition.

5. Negotiating salary never results in a win/win scenario.

6. A shortage of skilled labor is good for business — it builds organizational character and stimulates creativity.

7. It is much better to have people quit and leave than quit and stay.

8. Many people do not handle success well, and some people have a hard time handling other peoples’ success.

9. Profit is not always a good thing — it tends to mask organizational blemishes.

10. “You can’t do that” are the best words to motivate entrepreneurs.

11. Consultants are not any smarter if they travel from out-of-town. And, when you buy products and services from out-oftown companies you may be hurting local jobs.

12. Ask 50 people in your organization to describe your business and you may get 50 different responses.

13. Lawyers always win.

14. Greed and fear undermine everything at a company.

15. If you want good ideas, ask your employees first.

16. Many managers hate giving performance reviews.

17. Those who “go through the motions,” go nowhere.

18. Great leaders, always lead by example.

19. If you know, believe and know what you are doing you increase your odds of becoming very successful.

20. We learn more from our mistakes than from our successes.

Perhaps a few of these hit home for you. My guess is that you have your own list of lessons learned, which will most likely continue to grow throughout your career.

This year may have disrupted what we have known as normal workplaces and jobs, and perhaps what we believed.

For some, our current state of a pandemic has affected their work perspectives for the short and possibly the longterm. For others, they have thrived with the new challenges and obstacles being presented, viewing this as just another period of time in our history where we need to make adjustments and adapt to a new reality. Which brings me to my “bonus” lesson learned — most people are incredibly resilient and somehow, some way emerge from challenging times with a renewed sense of purpose, enthusiasm and strength.

I am hopeful that this takeaway rings true as we work our way through these challenging times.

For some, our current state of a pandemic has affected their work perspectives for the short and possibly the long-term. For others, they have thrived with the new challenges and obstacles being presented, viewing this as just another period of time in our history where we need to make adjustments and adapttoanew reality.