How Successful People Think: Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life pdfdrive com

3. Bottom-Line Thinking Helps You Make the Best Decisions
Decisions become much easier when you know your bottom line. When the
Girl Scouts were struggling in the 1970s, outside organizations tried to convince
its members to become women’s rights activists or door-to-door canvassers. But
under Hesselbein, it became easy for the Girl Scouts to say no. It knew its
bottom line, and it wanted to pursue its goals with focus and fervency.

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4. Bottom-Line Thinking Generates High Morale
When you know the bottom line and you go after it, you greatly increase your
odds of winning. And nothing generates high morale like winning. How do you
describe sports teams that win the championship, or company divisions that
achieve their goals, or volunteers who achieve their mission? They’re excited.
Hitting the target feels exhilarating. And you can hit it only if you know what it
is.

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5. Bottom-Line Thinking Ensures Your Future
If you want to be successful tomorrow, you need to think bottom line today.
That’s what Frances Hesselbein did, and she turned the Girl Scouts around. Look
at any successful, lasting company, and you’ll find leaders who know their
bottom line. They make their decisions, allocate their resources, hire their
people, and structure their organization to achieve that bottom line.

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HOW TO ENJOY THE RETURN OF BOTTOM-LINE THINKING
It isn’t hard to see the value of the bottom line. Most people would agree that
bottom-line thinking has a high return. But learning how to be a bottom-line
thinker can be challenging.

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1. Identify the Real Bottom Line
The process of bottom-line thinking begins with knowing what you’re really
going after. It can be as lofty as the big-picture vision, mission, or purpose of an
organizaion. Or it can be as focused as what you want to accomplish on a
particular project. What’s important is that you be as specific as possible. If your
goal is for something as vague as “success,” you will have a painfully difficult
time trying to harness bottom-line thinking to achieve it.
The first step is to set aside your “wants.” Get to the results you’re really
looking for, the true essence of the goal. Set aside any emotions that may cloud
your judgment and remove any politics that may influence your perception.
What are you really trying to achieve? When you strip away all the things that
don’t really matter, what are you compelled to achieve? What must occur? What
is acceptable? That is the real bottom line.

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