The Missing Leadership Aspect of “The Secret”
By admin“The Secret” video and now the book have received an enormous amount of attention all over the world in the last six months or so. It has been an amazing marketing coup! It is based on the Law of Attraction which is certainly not new. One of the primary Focus Factors we teach is “you get more of what you focus on.” That is the same concept. If you’ve read either of our books, ”Enlightened Leadership” or “Leadership Made Simple,” you know that our Forward Focus(TM) model is also consistent with the basic concepts of “moving toward what you focus on” found also in ”The Secret.”
From the first time I saw the video, I felt there was something missing. This might be controversial, and it is my strongly held perspective. And it is important in our leadership roles…
I immediately related the missing piece to the difference between our clients who have been wildly successful using our simple concepts and tools and those who really liked the work, and were only moderately(in comparison) successful in measurable results. The difference is quite obvious to me.
The missing piece of “The Secret” is ACTION! I personally question the value of the powerful concepts of the movie and the book without “action.” I personally have experienced a number of people who have worked hard to have the right thoughts, the right vision, the right clarity and goals, and they are sitting around wondering why nothing spectacular is happening in their work or their lives. The significant words there are “sitting around.” They are not taking action.
Likewise, the simple distinction of our wildly successful clients is that they are the ones that take action. It is really that simple! They aren’t smarter, they aren’t more innovative, they aren’t more fun-seeking, more beautiful, older, younger or anything else. The super-successful ones are simply the ones that use the concepts and tools – they take action.
Because of this realization, the new program we are announcing formally on April 16th, “Leading Change without Authority,” includes 11 months of coaching and group-learning teleconferences to assure follow-through, i.e., ACTION! The action is specifically related to the program’s subtitle, its promise, which is “Optimizing Your High Visibility Project while Strengthening Your Leadership Abilities.” We are very excited about the results we expect for those who participate.
I received a validation of my own thoughts about “The Secret” when I recently ran across an online “video” that addressed this in a presentation that the author, Mark Hendrick, called “The Real Secret.” He gets specifically to “action” about 10 minutes into it. You might enjoy listening to part of it, if not all.
May you use the Secret AND the Action in your leadership efforts!
Ed Oakley
4 Comments
April 10th, 2007 at 8:56 am
Good insights, Ed. I think the same holds true for branding a store or product. You can develop all the tools but unless you take action to put it in place with your associates and customers, it’s all just an activity trap.
good luck
Ken
April 10th, 2007 at 2:14 pm
Ed,
I agree. While they allude to taking action, there is no strong indication that you must act. They discuss subtle nuances of watching for signs so that you know what to do. But, there is no correlation to action – and action is required. The trick is two-fold: 1) identifying the “sign” (indicator, way ahead, etc) and then 2) doing something.
Dean
April 15th, 2007 at 11:28 am
Your point about action is well taken. Interestingly, many act without “intention”(those for whom the secret is quite helpfull)while others “intend” without acting(as you mention). The two aspects of creating used together generate a whole far greater than it’s parts. To me, an interesting thing to notice is.. that the exact action we take is far less important in attaining our outcomes than we often surmise. We limit not only the quantity of actions we actually take,but perhaps even the outcomes of the ones we do take by not holding clear our intention.Perhaps it is not so much the action that accomplishes as much as our belief in what the action will accomplish that in the end generates our results. just a thought
May 2nd, 2007 at 1:26 pm
Hi Ed, this is my contribute to the ACTION!
Nothing is achievable without ACTION but I would rather say “with the right and effective action.”
Moving forward from thoughts to ACTION will lead to success. To me finding the capacity to find the right action makes the credibility of the leader, it is like hitting the bull’s eye with the row!
Francesco