There are so many details to starting and running a business, but the key responsibility of a leader is to remember that business, at its core, is about people, working with people, doing stuff, for people.
Eighty to ninety percent of every issue you face as the CEO of a highly successful company will be about the people – suppliers, staff, strategic partners and clients – not the stuff. Burn this formula into your brain right now. Business is about people, working with people, doing stuff, for people. The stuff, while important, is always secondary.
B = P + P > S > PNow, many of your peers will lament and ignore this fact because they believe that people don’t matter as long as the forms are filled out right, the reports are done on time and the product is shipped or service deployed. Heck, you can do that with technology, can’t you? They will believe that it is inherently too difficult to deal with people because they seem so unpredictable and so they will not spend the time necessary to master what is necessary.
You will want to be different.People are actually very predictable, and if you spend a little time to understand what makes YOU tick, engaging them in your Vision of the future will be an amazingly rewarding experience. I am going to help you see what you haven’t seen before.
This is good news for those of you take what I am about to share seriously as it will give you access to great power. You see, all the power in an enterprise is in the relationships it creates. No amount of technology or product will ever trump the power of a trusting relationship.
It is my intention, then, within this column, to give you a useful context that can help you create and sustain one of the top firms in your industry. Why aim for less?
My experience as an entrepreneur, a three time CEO, and as a Chief Executive consultant who has worked with over 300 CEOs and their organizations has brought me to discover, appreciate and articulate three little known laws of success. These laws are essential to your becoming a credible leader capable of profitably growing a sustainable enterprise. These three universal laws of success are:
1.
To be Powerful in Your Life, you must first Understand & Master Yourself.
2.
To be Powerful with Others, you must first Understand Humanity and Master Relationships
3.
To be Powerful in the World, you must first learn to Co-create and Master a Game worth Playing.
On the face of it you may find yourself saying “I know that!” I mean you may even look at these three powerful laws and actually hear yourself thinking, “Well that’s just simple common sense!” I wish they were, but the fact is The Three Laws are almost universally ignored in today’s global business environment as being “too soft”. And therein lays a tremendous untapped power for those of you who adopt them as your own. You see
the magic is not in knowing the laws; the magic is in being them. Next week: Who you really are, and why you have been so hard to find.
If you manage or lead people in any capacity, if you are a CEO, entrepreneur, business owner, executive or manager, for a limited time, you can go to www.ceo2.com and download my book, The Accidental CEO - A Leader's Journey from Ego to Purpose absolutely FREE. 
