Relationships are on your side
From Susan, CEO of Cue the Accountatnt: I attend a CEO Forum through my local SCORE network - if you haven't heard of SCORE, here is a link to the Minneapolis chapter:
https://minneapolis.score.org/
Through this forum, I have learned about my personal Social Style, and the Social Styles of people who are my clients, and people who are my employees. The Social Style information gave me "a snapshot about the importance and value you place on certain behaviors and how you tend to get things done with others."
Well for me, I get things done. Period. That's my mantra in life, and it's how I think business should be run. You need something done, and you hire a consultant to do it. Where I'm currently prospering through the learning process, however, is in my communication skills with others, to inquire about how they get things done, and how they view the world.
This information has proved invaluable to me, both in understanding the world around me, and in understanding my clients' needs. And in that, I find peace of mind, because it allows me the ability to address needs, which is the purpose of our work.
What got me thinking about the value of this is the feedback our team has been receiving lately. By and large the feedback has been positive, even glowing sometimes, but there are still a few hiccups that we experience, and much of those have to do with communication, or a lack of it. And instead of feeling bad about these hiccups, our team treats it as an opportunity to do better, to grow and learn from our mistakes, and in turn create a better overall experience for our clients. We can't change the past, but we can write the future, and that is always our intent - to get better and provide more accurate and relevant results.
This overall attitude - to do well by creating strong relationships and open communication - is the result of my training through SCORE. What I shared above is an example of the way mentoring can lead to success for a business owner, in that it shapes the thought processes involved in creating a solid team and work environment. And the information is coming from successful business owners who have already been down that road.
If you have a business or you're a leader with an idea, I recommend SCORE to you.