IT'S TIME...

It's time for American businesses to fly again, both figuratively and literally.

It's time for American businesses to stop playing it safe and acting like they need a guarantee for success before they will take a prudent risk. (Of course, if they had a guarantee for success, then they would not be taking a risk. More on that in a moment.)

For the past six years, far too many American businesses have acted like they should be automatically rewarded for every initiative. In the late 1990s, many businesses pumped billions of dollars into innovation and new approaches to the marketplace. However, this was not risk taking because many of these businesses assumed that if they put the word "internet" anywhere in their business plan, they would automatically be rewarded handsomely. When that boondoggle fell apart, far too many businesses took the exact opposite approach: fire employees, eliminate investments in innovation, conserve cash and WAIT for the economy to turn around.

Folks, there is no magic wand for turning the economy around. It will happen only when businesses, from small to large, decide to stop waiting and to start taking chances again. Paraphrasing Franklin D. Roosevelt, the greatest risk we can take is to not take any risks.

Tom Brokaw did our country a great favor by writing about the greatest generation, the individuals who carried us through the depression, WWII and the post-war years. In the late 1940s and 1950s, Americans faced an uncertain international situation, they were coming off of terrible economic conditions, they experienced a housing boom like nothing ever seen in this country before and they had relatively new technologies in the form of televisions, automobiles and airplanes. Doesn't all of this sound eerily familiar to the America of today? But instead of being frozen into avoiding risks, the greatest generation stepped forward, they tried new things, they were charged up by the possibilities, not the guarantees. If we are going to be a great generation, if we are going to leave our mark on history, then we must take chances again. We must invest in innovation. We must find new ways to add more value to customers. We have to stop waiting for someone else to turn the economy around. So today decide what you can do to make your organization more successful and then take a risk and invest in doing it. It's time for us to make our mark as a generation.

Resource Recommendation: The Greatest Generation by Tom Brokaw.

Take care and have a great month!

Dan Coughlin

Accelerate Update This section is always current to the current month

I suppose every book changes an author's life to a certain degree. My first book, which was self-published in 1995, was called Inside Out: A Catalyst for Conscious Living. It's out of print now for a number of good reasons. The layout, which yours truly did, looks like something a first grader could do today. And the ideas are very theoretical, which doesn't fit my approach anymore. However, I read the book a few months ago, and I was pleased by how clearly I had explained my early thoughts on improving performance.

My second book, Corporate Catalysts: How to Make Your Company More Successful, Whatever Your Title, Income, or Authority was published in 2005 by Career Press. That book was a step forward in clarifying my ideas on improving performance and understanding how to write a whole book. It's one thing to dream about getting a book contract and another thing to write a 70,000 word manuscript.

My third book, ACCELERATE: 20 Practical Lessons to Boost Momentum, which was published in May 2007 by Kaplan Publishing, has changed my business dramatically. Up until that book was published, I mostly did projects for four companies: McDonald's, Marriott, GSD&M, and Toyota. In the past 12 months, I've worked with business owners, executives, and managers within dozens of small, medium, and massive organizations in more than 20 industries ranging from boats to banks to software to financial services to trucking to lighting to home healthcare to hospitals to optometrists. It's been an exciting adventure.

If you want to see my speaking calendar for 2008, which we'll try to update every two weeks, please click here.

Currently, I have 66 speeches scheduled for 2008. If you would like for me to speak at one of your events in 2008 or 2009, feel free to contact me at dan@thecoughlincompany.com and I will be glad to see if we can make it work.

If you want to see my speaking topics and a video of footage from some of my keynote speeches, please click here.

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