Recently, at our annual Infor EAM user conference, Connect, I shared a presentation inspired by one of my all-time favorite books, Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
I’m sure most of you reading this Marty’s Minute have read that book. Do you realize it was first published in 1989? Yes, 30 years ago.
What I liked so much about the book was it gave us a simple list of habits to think about to be an effective leader.
I don’t want to talk about the 7 habits here because I think you already know them. What I want to share with you is what I believe to be the 7 essentials for implementing a highly functional Infor EAM system. To do this, I have to first give credit to Covey for utilizing his great wisdom.
So here are the 7 things I think are critical when implementing an effective EAM system:
1. Start with an end in mind: Have a vision of what you want your system to look like when you are done. How can you know what to do if you don’t know where you are going? To determine where you are headed, ask questions like: What is the system going to do for your organization? How will people benefit from this project?
2. Know your team: In any championship organization, when you peel back the layers you find a group that knows it teammates – their likes, dislikes, styles, and work habits. They know who their partners are, and they really trust each other to get the job done.
3. Understand the numbers: This one is critical. I’m amazed at how many leaders really don’t know their numbers. Whether it is budgets, savings, impacts on the business, or success metrics, whatever you measure it's important you know your numbers!
4. Educate yourself and your people: Train, train, train. Enough said.
5. Think differently: Too many project leaders are closed minded. They think the only way to get something done is their way. With a high-performance team, you need to challenge the team and yourself to think differently. When you do, you will always come up with ideas you never thought about.
6. Get people involved: We are all in the people business. If you don't get your people involved, you'll end up doing all the work. There are only so many hours in the day, and if you don't spread the work, you'll never meet your goal.
7. Lead when you’re not in control: How many times have you heard someone say, “If I was in control I would do it differently”? The challenge is it is not authority or control that makes you a leader, leadership is about influence. If you just do the right things and lead by example, you’ll go a lot farther than waiting to be in charge.
If you follow these 7 essentials, it will make getting to your intended destination a whole lot easier!
Until next time…I’m Marty, make every minute count.
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