The last few years have been a whirlwind of challenges and lessons learned.
Before closing the door on 2011 and boldly moving into 2012, I thought I’d pass on some words of wisdom from my school of hard knocks.

1) Long hours spent toiling away at the office doesn’t necessarily indicate that meaningful work is being done.  Unfortunately, it often instead indicates a reluctance to improve processes or a misguided adherence to convoluted steps meant to provide checks and balances for bad processes.  In today’s world it should be the duty of every employee to become more efficient by learning new things, reducing steps and adding value, rather than time, to every initiative.  I’ve seen this before while managing but somehow forgot it as an entrepreneur.  A few things might fall through the cracks when you make a change from a person who thinks their job is to elongate every function but it will take a lot of things slipping through those cracks to add up to the salary being paid to the inefficient high dollar employee.
2) Do not hire employees or contemplate a partner who cannot articulate your value proposition or who does not agree with it. The owner of a small business needs every employee to be committed to the value proposition and clear on how they demonstrate it in every interaction with a prospect, client or teammate. Don't assume that because they want to work in your business that the mission of the business matters at all to them, they may just need a job.
3) A small business is not a family. It is a team and both the owner and the staff have to demonstrate their value to the team every day or risk being cut from the team.
4) Success today is about Linchpins. Every organization, non profit, not for profit, corporation, or small business needs people who are committed to learning and bringing new ideas and ways of doing things to the table. There are no positions of less import where this commitment doesn’t matter. From the owner to the guy sweeping up, you either get it or you don’t. If you don’t get it, time will not make it better, time will instead add cost and take away opportunity.
5) Trust your instincts. Many of the mistakes I made in the last three years were exacerbated by involvement with people who I originally didn’t like, didn’t respect or didn’t trust.  I talked myself into thinking they were smart and just needed a chance, or thinking they were young and had changed with experience or thinking that I could be the difference in helping them to be a better person… and I was wrong. People change because they want to, not because you want them to or because your business provides them with the means to change.  
6) Lastly “fair” is in the eye of the beholder. So trying to do what is “fair” in the eyes of someone else is inherently problematic. As the owner, your definition of fair is typically based on expectations fulfilled. Employees tend to think about fair in relationship to what happened to others and not what was expected of them specifically. I’m not sure there is an answer on this one but I did learn that you cannot make everyone happy and maybe that shouldn’t be the goal. The goal should be to make the Linchpins happy because they are the ones your business needs moving forward.