ScottWesterman.com

By Scott Westerman
School starts at MSU on Monday. The dorms are brimming with kids who can’t wait to get rid of their parents. Text books are flying out of the bookstores and tomorrow begins a brand new year of enlightenment, inside and outside the classroom.

For my business friends, you too are probably deeply ensconced in budgets by now. You’re already trying to predict what your marketplace will look like and how you’ll position your resources to capitalize on it… and forecast your success with month by month precision.

So today is a perfect time for some New Year’s Resolutions! What are yours? Here are mine!

• I am committed to a regular fitness plan that will give me more energy. I’ll be in the gym at least three times a week. I will cut my Coke and junk food intake in half. Within 90 days, I will have dropped 15 pounds and will have a routine in place to maintain the healthy lifestyle I preach.
• I will continue to prioritize the most important people in my life: Colleen, Shelby, Brandon, Stephanie and Mike, and those old and new friends who give more than they get. Date night will remain sacrosanct – Wednesday evenings.
• I will update the bucket list and start working on it now.
• By the end of fiscal 2010-2011 (June 30, 2011) we will have increased membership in MSUAA by 20%. Our Net Promoter Score will be in the high 70s and we will become one of the best places to work in Michigan.
• I will benchmark three additional best-in-class service companies and incorporate what I learn into my leadership philosophy and operational culture.
• I promise to take vacation, beginning with a week of meditation and renewal, just for me, in October.
• I will compassionately avoid energy suckers and embrace and encourage fellow joy seekers.
• The book will be printed before Homecoming!
• I will schedule myself to get eight hours of sleep a night. (Yeah.. I know that feels like a pipe dream, but I’m really gonna try!)
• I will face all unpleasant realities, yet never lose faith in the ultimately favorable outcome.
• I will forgive those who hurt me and forgive myself for my many screw-ups and imperfections.
• I will endeavor to live the Spartan Life every day and work on modeling the behavior for others.

Since I’m sharing all this with you, my accountability buddies, I hereby empower you to call me out if I’m not living up to any of these commitments, or any other commitments you think should go along with them. Feedback is the breakfast of champions so consider this an “all you can eat” restaurant.

There’s one more resolution. I’ll be happy to be your confidential accountability buddy, too. If you wish, send me your own personal New Year’s Resolutions. I’ll check up on you from time to time to see how you’re doing.

Have a great week… and Happy New Year!

Feedback welcome to scott@spartanology.com or @MSUScottW on Twitter.

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By Scott Westerman
“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” – Theodore Roosevelt

Every community has it’s own Secret CEO Society, that small percentage of  people who seem to do all the work.

These are the innovators, the idea generators, the ones who volunteer to lead even when the job might not be fun and no other hands go up. They have known pain, sometimes a lot of it, but they haven’t lost their love for life, their curiosity, their resiliency, or their sense of humor. They tend to invest more in philanthropic interests and less in material things for themselves. They have egos, but they are exponentially smaller than the causes they choose to support. They are almost always lending a hand, cooking you a meal, giving you a ride, or asking you lots of questions about the things that interest you. (more…)

By Scott Westerman
“When you discover your mission, you will feel its demand. It will fill you with enthusiasm and a burning desire to get to work on it.” – W. Clement Stone

I was recently assigned the task of reading the mission statements of a group of business units. I did. I can’t remember a word. Each one filled at least a page, many took two pages. None of them made an impression. (more…)

By Scott Westerman
“Rewarding relationships are hard work, sometimes joyful, sometimes frustration and always in need of attention. But the best ones are well worth it!”

For those who don’t know, Twitter.com provides a 140 character platform to tell the world what you’re doing. Over time, it has evolved into the heartbeat of the Internet, a headline service where news breaks first, and a thermometer that takes the Twitternation’s temperature on important issues of the day. (more…)

By Scott Westerman
“Good art is art that allows you to enter it from a variety of angles and to emerge with a variety of views.” – Mary Schmich

It was somewhere during the mid-1980s when our company became hip to diversity. In those days, diversity was all about removing barriers for women and “people of color”. (more…)

By Scott Westerman
“Competition is .. not an act of oppression or abrasion – I’ve worked with my best friends in direct competition.” – Diane Sawyer

One of my earliest football memories is being a boy scout usher at Michigan Stadium on the day when Michigan State came to town. Then as now, the U of M regular season was a run-up to the Ohio State game and Bump Elliot, Bo Schembechler, et al, always hoped that they could escape their encounter with the Spartans of East Lansing to prepare for the annual event that often determined who would go to the Rose Bowl. (more…)

None of us has gotten where we are solely by pulling ourselves up from our own bootstraps. We got here because somebody bent down and helped us. – Thurgood Marshall

For my friend, Frank Eliason, the four words “How can I help” transformed him and in the process, also transformed our concept of exceptional customer care.

At the time, we both worked for Comcast. The sheer size of the company and the hundreds of thousands of transactions it generates each day inevitably throw off hundreds of unhappy campers. As the guy who lead our CEO’s escalation team, Frank dealt with the angriest of the angry. (more…)

By Scott Westerman
Scott’s First Leadership Maxim – “Any unresolved team member issue becomes a leadership issue.”

I vividly remember the first time I fired somebody . (more…)

By Scott Westerman
“Imagine yourself  as if you already were what you potentially could be. Demonstrate it to others every day and you will become that person.”

The Snyder/Phillips Gallery sets the standard for residence hall dining at Michigan State University. With food stations named New Traditions, Latitudes, The Berg, Ciao, The Brimstone Grille and Bliss, you immediately get the sensation that this is no ordinary culinary experience.

Whenever I have visitors on Campus, I try to put a SnyPhi meal on the schedule. And on the rare occasions when I eat lunch alone, I love to bask in the energy that emanates there. (more…)

By Scott Westerman
My friend Kathleen reminded me of the spiritual maxim, “Bloom where you are planted,” this week. She’s a shining example.

After relocating with her young child, she discovered that the teaching career she had planned on wasn’t materializing. Rather than abandoning her home base, she pondered what opportunities might lie right their in the neighborhood. Thinking carefully about that magic point where her passions intersected with her skills, she took her Michigan State University education and focused it on becoming a free lance editor. To shorten a long story (most success does not happen overnight), she now can pick her clients, is loving where she is living and earns the income to enjoy the fruits of her labors. (more…)