{"id":13890,"date":"2014-01-28T10:30:19","date_gmt":"2014-01-28T15:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/?p=13890"},"modified":"2014-01-28T10:37:06","modified_gmt":"2014-01-28T15:37:06","slug":"are-you-using-a-gps-advice-to-communicators-and-startups","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/are-you-using-a-gps-advice-to-communicators-and-startups\/","title":{"rendered":"Are you using a GPS? (advice to communicators and startups)"},"content":{"rendered":"

We tend to think that we operate out of our values as if it’s like a default setting on a washing machine.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The truth is, at best, we are consistent at that stuff only\u00a0sometimes<\/span>. Not because we are horrid cads, but because we get busy.<\/p>\n

If you are a person of faith or want to live from a set of important values, you can’t take this modus operandi<\/em><\/a> for granted.<\/p>\n

You have to do some groundwork. (I’ll get to specifics in a moment.)<\/p>\n

First, the short story of Jackie will help us out.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"taxes\"<\/p>\n

Jackie is tax consultant. She had worked for a national brand firm in town and was striking it out on her own\u2013almost by accident and not all at once.<\/p>\n

It started when she kept noticing that some of her friends and family members didn’t know what they were doing. In a panic, usually at the end of March, they started asking her for help. Most of them didn’t know enough to get the best refund, and she heated the idea of that.<\/p>\n

She picked up some side work, and within two tax seasons she had herself completely booked at tax time. About 20% of those clients needed accounting help throughout the year for their small business. She also found a few non profits clients too. She really needed help by the third year and had left her other job by then.<\/p>\n

Like you would expect, she hired help and plunged into her work.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I didn’t put too much weight into the particulars of hiring. I was so busy with the details of getting the work done. So, the most important thing got steamrolled by the urgency of my work.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Things started going badly. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Out of the 3 part-time workers, only one of them actually had the same values as she did. She realized this too late and it created friction and a tense working environment. One person left and started bad-mouthing her in her small town. The other position seemed like a revolving door of employee turnover. She almost quit the whole thing. It was keeping her up a lot at night.<\/p>\n

Jackie didn’t have Human Resources Training or organizational management training<\/a>. She just had a bunch of work and she was good at those skills. She needed to clone herself.<\/p>\n

It didn’t come to that, of course.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, a mentor gave her some great advice. She said,<\/p>\n

Back up a bit. Sit down and put your most important\u00a0values<\/strong> and business aims<\/strong>\u00a0down with ink on paper. It’ll work like a compass or GSP. <\/strong>It will help with both the route and<\/strong> destination.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It worked. Her commitment statements guided all her business decisions after that. Hiring, training, working with clients, getting new clients, and getting her little company running smoothly needed that solid foundation.<\/p>\n

It’s a great lesson. If you aren’t using a GPS you’re going to get lost. <\/span><\/h3>\n

Before you take on side work. Before you hire someone. And most importantly, before you get busy<\/span>, do the ground work so that your priorities and core guiding principles are something that flow out and throughout all your interactions, not get tacked on afterword.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

If you value <\/span>honesty, joy, compassion, and persistence<\/span>, for\u00a0instance, make them the anchor<\/span> for all the skills you execute and all the projects you take on.<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Have you initiated your GPS? Do you have your guiding principles on paper and operate from them?<\/p>\n

I hope that was helpful.
\nDo you know someone who might need this advice?<\/p>\n

Please share!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

before you get busy, do the ground work so that your priorities and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5626,76],"tags":[5459,265,5325,4649,530,6087,5658,933,4377,4705,4697,4765,1122,6247,1204,1222,1372,1503,3829,1616,37,6385,4716,1763,3937,1858,4081,2194,2470,2559,2699,5902,2857,5358,3001,5717,5787,3257,3274,3478,3516,3578,3579,3661,3711,89],"class_list":["post-13890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spark-my-muse","category-spirituality","tag-accident","tag-asking","tag-best","tag-business","tag-busy","tag-commitment","tag-communicators","tag-decisions","tag-do","tag-door","tag-down","tag-employee","tag-end","tag-enough","tag-faith","tag-family","tag-friends","tag-good","tag-gps","tag-help","tag-hope","tag-human-resources","tag-if","tag-in","tag-ink","tag-job","tag-just","tag-mentor","tag-panic","tag-picked","tag-priorities","tag-projects","tag-resources","tag-running","tag-seasons","tag-small","tag-startup","tag-story","tag-stuff","tag-training","tag-truth","tag-value","tag-values","tag-weight","tag-will","tag-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13890"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13890\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13896,"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13890\/revisions\/13896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}