Top 10 business virtues

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How creative are you at getting in the door with top prospects? One subtle approach I’ve taken is to send a little gem of a book with my business card and a personal inscription on the blank inside cover. One book I’ve used in the past is Wisdom, Inc., by Seth Godin.

Seth’s a great marketing writer, and he put this book together in a very marketing-like way…polling 7,000-odd executives on what virtues they extoll as crucial to success (I’m a sucker for insightful, good-reminder reads like this). The book is that compilation (it’s a review of the Top 10 from the survey results, and the complete list of 26).

You should buy the book, but in the meantime here are the Top 10:

1. Ethics
2. Teamwork
3. Honesty
4. Curiosity
5. Hard Work
6. Intelligence
7. Self-motivation
8. Sense of humor
9. Initiative
10. Creativity

I like how Ben Franklin approached improving his virtues. It is said that he placed each one of the virtues on a separate page in a small book that he kept with him for most of his life. He would evaluate his performance with regard to each of them on a daily basis. He would also select one of the virtues to focus on for full week. His virtues were:

1. Temperance
2. Silence
3. Order
4. Resolution
5. Frugality
6. Industry
7. Sincerity
8. Justice
9. Moderation
10. Cleanliness
11. Tranquility
12. Chastity
13. Humility

With 13 virtues, Franklin could “work on” each virtue for a full week exactly four times each year.

So…what are you doing to work on the who-you-are, not just the what-you-do this year?

wisdom, virtues, traits