Hiring Wisdom: Can You Focus on What Is Important, But Not Urgent?

It’s probable you have a list of (or at least know) the reasons why your customers buy from you.

It’s also probable you don’t have the same sort of list of why anyone should want to work for you.

Problem is, if you don’t know why anyone should want to work for you, how could potential applicants possibly know?

What we can learn from Eisenhower

In my presentations, this seems to make perfect sense to the participants and when I ask how many of them will go back and create this list, it never fails that most of them raise their hands. Then I offer a free copy of one of my books or white papers to everyone who will copy me on their list when it’s complete.

The average return is about 10 percent.

I think I know why this happens so often. It’s hard for most folks to remain focused on what’s important, but not urgent, when so many seemingly urgent things clamor for their attention.

Here’s what the man credited with winning World War II had to say about that:

“In a 1954 speech, former U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower said: “I have two kinds of problems: the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent.”

This ‘Eisenhower Principle’ is said to be how he organized his workload and priorities.”

Would you see better results if you could be more like Ike?

This was originally published on Mel Kleiman’s Humetrics blog.