Name: Tom
Posts by tnies:
- A keen sense of purpose, or mission
- Self-confidence and courage
- Skills in the necessary disciplines
- Astute decision-making in taking right measures at the right time
- An ability to communicate or transmit their vision.
- good and bad,
- generosity and greed,
- selfishness and magnanimity,
- ignorance and enlightenment,
- stupidity and cleverness, and
- kindness and ruthlessness.
How to Become the Entrepreneurial Leader of Tomorrow – Today
February 19th, 2010
Photo couressty of Dai Oni
Leaders deal in ideas. They also deal in ideals. The more relevant and significant the ideas may be, the greater and the more substantial are the opportunities and the challenges and the need for leaders to create the ideals only once merely imagined.
Much entrepreneurial energy and effort is involved with a facilitating the American ideal of “the pursuit of happiness.” Better economic and environmental circumstances help to provide the universal desire. The entrepreneurial idea has played a leading role in both the tragedies, and the comedies, which have affected our lives and our history. The entrepreneurial idea has also helped to reconcile the many potential conflicts which will probably always exist among a diverse and pluralistic society, such as America has become. That’s why entrepreneurial leadership has not only been a powerful force for the successful “pursuit of happiness,” but has also been a major factor in helping to create not only increasing prosperity and diverse employment opportunities, but also improving unity within society.
TRANSFORMATIVE LEADERSHIP
Successful entrepreneurial leaders create a compelling vision of where the organization should head. They also continuously communicate how to proceed, and energetically guide and encourage the development of the organization’s capabilities to advance that vision in a relentless and resolute pursuit of sustained success. Unshakeable will, undaunted determination and relentless pursuit of desires and goals are key hallmarks of these endeavors.
LEADERSHIP TRAITS
But, I think that all truly great leaders are marked not only with an exceptional sense of self-confidence, which is manifest on the surface and thereby encourages and stimulates others, but also with a sense that penetrates deep into the subconscious of a leader, and therefrom permeates all that such a one may be, or does. I do not think that it is possible to overstate the power of such a type of conscious and subconscious self-confidence.
Entrepreneurial success, like success in any pursuit, is more about the consummate understanding and mastery of key principles and less about following rules.
A rule states,
“You must do it this way.”
A principle says,
“This works – and usually works well – and has done so through all remembered time.
The difference is crucial.
The anxious, the cautious and the lesser experienced may, quite rightly, try to follow rules; the seemingly rebellious, unschooled and ignorant may break rules – sometimes unwittingly so. Moreover, all of these types of practitioners may try to succeed focusing upon only subsets of situations without realizing how all of the forces at work interact in both conflicting and supporting ways.
But the master of an art, any art, develops mastery over the form of the art using time tested and time proven principles. The master is guided by proper principles. And, the master well understands the wisdom of the principles he so faithfully and assiduously practices. Mastery of their important art should be the ideal of every entrepreneur. However, there can be little doubt that the habit of command of situations, and the leadership of persons, makes it easier and more natural to become better able to bear the responsibilities of leadership, and to fulfill the duties of decision-making which are essential to leadership. So, leaders are learners, who learn by leading. Yet, like all of us, so gaining such understandings is a lifelong process. Leaders learn forward, yet they tend to understand leadership backwards.
Some of the ablest leaders known to history have been those who have arisen in times of crises and grave dangers. Such leaders had a boundlessness of courage and conviction. These were matched by their self-confidence, sound judgment and sense of discernment. To them, the impulses to power seemed to be righteous and noble. Such leaders cared little, if at all, for the rewards of power – such as luxury and ease – which cannot be harmonized with their clear-sighted and totally committed identification with their views of the cosmic purposes to which they were willing to “pay the price,” no matter how demanding or risky. It is a combination of great faith, stirred by abiding hope, and supported by powerful abilities and strength of character which enables leaders to inspire their followers with the degree of confidence which enables them to collectively “Seize the Day” and capitalize on the opportunities mutually sought.
LEADERS DEVELOP SKILLS
But, beyond these immense and exceptional faculties, great leaders always seek to develop very great skills in their disciples. They are also disciplined and knowledgeable persons. They well know how to do what they are trying to do. They are at once as efficient as they are effective. They do the right things, and they do those things rightly. The greater the challenges they face, the more magnificent are their responses. There is simply no mountain too high, or too dangerous, which they cannot seem to be able, and willing, to scale. These are spectacular gifts when they are all graced in a single leader. Such powers energize the leader, and the leader’s followers. This Principle of Power is to leaders what the Principle of Energy is to Physics. Both Power and Energy are transformative. Leaders transform themselves, while they transform their followers, and together with their followers they transform their world as well.
LEADERSHIP QUALITIES
Leadership is relative. It is not absolute nor does it seek to be so. But, leadership is also relevant. To acquire the position of a leader, one must excel in the qualities that confer authority. Many, if not most, of these have just been noted. Summarized, these might be:
The love of power as a motive, which all persons have to varying degrees, is stunted by the fears which limit the desire for self-direction which. This is why “Stonewall” Jackson followed his famous maxim to “never take counsel with your fears.” That’s also why great leaders “take counsel with their hopes,” and not with their doubts, or fears. Successful leaders are fearless persons of great faith in their purpose and mission. Thankfully, timidity, the “kryptonite” of leadership which is so weakening, is lessened by the habit of responsibility. Happily, responsibility tends to increase the desire for power. And, it is power, and the desire for power, which energizes leaders and transforms their followers and those they seek to serve.
INNOVATIVE DIFFERENTATION
In these processes one will inevitably focus upon innovation of some type. But, every successful entrepreneur well knows that differentiation is at least as important as is innovation. While innovation focuses upon the provider’s offerings, differentiation focuses upon the value, satisfaction, utility or delight that the innovation uniquely provides to the customer. Innovation without the differentiation that entrepreneurial energy generates, seldom produces optimal appeal and value to potential customers, nor does it create the optimal advantage and preference for the seller so necessary for success. However, when these innovative differentials are significant, whole new categories of business opportunities can be, and are, created. Within these new categories, new opportunities are provided for many others to improve and expand the possibilities spawned by entrepreneurial leadership. In these ways, entrepreneurial leaders have increasingly more become major dynamic forces which are rapidly and significantly transforming, and advancing, our modern world. And, it is for these reasons that entrepreneurial leaders have become many of the brightest new heroes and most glorious iconic role models of modern business and commerce.
Commerce, entrepreneurship and our personal undertakings have much in common. It might even be said that each of us in our own personal ways and everyday living is a type of entrepreneur. We see, and seek, various opportunities which we hope will satisfy various wants and needs we may have ― and we then pursue these opportunities and possibilities using ways and means which are consistent with our values and our ethical and moral standards and the principles we follow. As free persons, we tend to pursue those things that we want to achieve. The more we desire, or love what we are trying to accomplish, the better and more eager we will become in that pursuit. People pursue what they desire, and what they love. So, in a very real way, even in a world which may sometimes be lacking in love, in the end it is love which moves and sustains all that is good in the world.
Sure, we want to succeed in our pursuits ― but we should also want to do so in honorable and just ways that we will feel good about ― and which we trust will help us to become a better, happier and more fulfilled person. But, happiness is seldom achieved in the doing or pursuit of something one does not feel deeply about, nor which is ethically and morally proper.
THOUGHTFUL ACTION
In our various pursuits we each are both a theorist and a pragmatist. Some of our difficulties arise in relating one to another. We must at the same time be persons of thought, and persons of action. The more thorough the thought, the better are the probabilities that the choices we make and the actions we effect will be correct ones. And the more precisely executed the actions demanded must be, the more clearly must be the thought processes. Otherwise, we will wear ourselves to exhaustion in bad choices, ways and means, all of which may produce little positive results, and may also be quite damaging to one’s self and to others..
Sometimes, maybe most times, we start only with the vaguest and murkiest of ideas, and refine or clarify them as we become engaged in the pursuit. But, the degree of entrepreneurial talent is largely determined by how well one is able to unite into a sound synthesis, theory and practice, ends and means and the satisfaction of individual interests, and the interests of the entire community the successful entrepreneur must serve.
FROM “IS NOW” TO “OUGHT TO BE”
Fashioning the “is now” into the “ought to be” is the essence of entrepreneurial art. The perseverance to have these become constructed into that “will be” of the future changes almost everything about one’s self, and one’s situation. That’s why entrepreneurial activity is so powerfully transformative. In these endeavors, one must possess a commanding knowledge of one’s field, the setting and the situation. Problems tend to almost always be opportunities in disguise. But, one must thoroughly understand the problems before one can provide the unique or preferred solutions which others seek. However, “Commanding Knowledge” does not mean an extended awareness into every nook and cranny, and every crack and crevice of an existent situation. Rather, it means thorough knowledge of everything germane and relevant.
THE UNIFYING POWER OF LEADERSHIP
Each of us largely crafts our own self forward as we seek to realize our professional and our personal pursuits. In these endeavors, it is not so much that we are taught, but rather that we learn through our studies, interactions and experiences. But, we do not do so alone ― nor in a vacuum. Many forces are always at work ― some are friendly and helpful; others are antagonistic and hurtful.
But, the greatest achievers usually find conflicts, difficulties, obstacles and obstructions to be somehow useful. The more resistant the opposing forces, the stronger becomes the muscle which strains against them. So, too, for our professional competencies. Constraints don’t inhibit creativity and resourcefulness; they encourage, stimulate and inspire them. And challenges and difficulties are among the most stimulating causes of the positive constructive responses which combine together to help leaders expand themselves, society and other individuals too. We learn only when we become engaged; the more engaged we become, the better we learn.
All entrepreneurial activity involves a number of human beings. So, the entrepreneurial genius lies heavily in developing a realistic and astute view and understanding of human nature. The first such understanding is the realization that human nature is protean to the ultimate. The next understanding is that we humans are mixtures of extremes, and not a blended average. We each are as good as the best that we have done, and as bad as the worst. We also have strengths – and weaknesses.
So, a successful entrepreneur, like anyone who is able to positively and constructively interact with others, has neither a utopian nor a pessimistic view of human beings. Rather, they know that people are a mixture of good and bad, of generosity and of greed, of selfishness and of magnanimity, of ignorance and of enlightenment, of stupidity and of cleverness, of kindness and ruthlessness, and of an almost endless variety of contraries with the less becoming elements of our makeup too often predominating. Entrepreneurial persons tend to learn to take persons as they are, and not as one may wish, or imagine, them to be.
In this complex mixture of traits which seems to be always changing with situation and circumstance, we must somehow function. In these processes, we make our lives as we try to make our living. This ceaseless effort to make our living makes us. Just as we are shaped by our environments, and by others, we each also further shape, in various ways, the environment we inhabit, and the others with whom we interdependently interact.
The world is full of immediate possibilities and restraining practicalities. And this is as it must be. We want, and need, the liberty and freedom to pursue our own heart’s delight. But, there must be laws, rules, regulations and codes of conduct which restrain and regulate each of us lest we damage the liberties and freedoms which others also, by right, are entitled to have and to enjoy. So, we must also want and support the various restraints which should govern us, just as we want the liberties and freedoms needed to pursue our wants and desires.
Honor. Integrity. Conscience. Ethics. Values. Morals.
All of these are at the same time both regulators and energizers.
Each entrepreneur will seek to lead an organization which reflects the substance, style and structure which is consistent with each one’s own visions and values. The better and clearer, and more noble, or lofty, those visions and values become, the more attractive and energizing they can become to those who the entrepreneur must both attract and lead. And this attractiveness must be both a magnetic attractiveness and an appealing attraction as well.
Businesses must attract customers, staff and capital. In these attractions, trust is the coin of the realm.
Capitalism proceeds from credit and credit proceeds from trust. So, trust must never be depreciated or violated in any way. In the various halls and rooms of Cincom’s offices are posters which succinctly advise that,
“Trust Builds Relationships; Execution Builds Results.”
Since it is the results that determine in the end whether a business succeeds or fails, pragmatism and excellence of execution are both essential. But, so too is everything else upon which trust is created. Perhaps the most important foundation of trust is truth.
CONCLUSION
Finally, entrepreneurial leaders understand that we each, and the organizations we serve, are all parts of a vast cosmos of interacting relationships and functions. This network must be structured and controlled such that there is a harmonious, useful, valuable and profitable sense of community and concord among all involved. We cannot privatize profits which will be shared by a few and then socialize losses which must be borne by many others. To do so is both unfair and unjust. Rapacious pirates and plunderers who rape and pillage society must be ostracized, and even punished, to the degree of the damage and unjust exploitation of society that they may so dishonorably inflict. Reciprocally, all should somehow benefit in every advance and gain because, in truth, all in some way have collaborated together in diverse ways perhaps too numerous to even imagine to create the conditions and the energies needed for progress.
Management and guidance are essential to a proper organizing and functioning of structure. Organization is key because without organization there can be little, if any, real power. Successful entrepreneurial leaders well know and consistently practice the art of both an organizing function and also of “Servant Leadership.” The idea that “the superior of all must be the servant of all” is intuitively realized and faithfully practiced by successful entrepreneurial leaders. Such leaders realize that their staff does not work for the leader, but with the leader in their joint and unified pursuit of common goals. The entrepreneur facilitates and advances the three ideas of Peace, Unity and Prosperity for and among all, which have for millennia been the ideals of many of the most elevated and enlightened persons everywhere. So, the leader must aid each member of the team to optimally perform and serve those common interests and objectives. “Servant Leadership” helps each to do more, and to perform better.
Much of this we each already surely realize ― at least to some degree. But, in life we learn forward. Only then are we able to begin to understand. This means that whatever we do understand, we understand only backwards, or retrospectively. So, we may make many errors as we try to proceed forward. Of course, we must seek to learn as much as we can from every situation and encounter we may have. Yet, we must not let our failings or current shortcomings cause us to become so discouraged, intimidated or cynical that we become too fearful to continue to try. The adage “If at first you don’t succeed, then try, try and try again” is good advice for us all. If success were easy to achieve, then everyone would be successful. But, we know that, like success, nothing truly worthwhile is ever easily achieved. Nor are such achievements gained by the many. Rather, the best of good fortune seems to favor only the few. That’s why the ideas of dauntlessness in the face of adversity and courage amid danger are hallmarks of the successful among us.
With these few thoughts, I’ve only tried to offer some ideas which may help us in our progressive learnings and successes forward.
In our retrospective understandings we become more able to well and successfully lead others in our various leadership and entrepreneurial endeavors.
We hope these ideas will help, even if only in some small ways, to aid all of us to individually and collectively change our world for the better for the benefit of everyone involved, and those we may affect in any way.
The Science of Selling as an Art Form
February 5th, 2010All decision making processes are both rational and emotional. These two processes are sometimes hard to separate but they are both at work, especially in sales cycle.
Selling becomes an art form when a seller tries to incorporate logic, which will appeal to the rational side of the decision, and present images, appealing to the emotional aspect, in an effective way.
To aid this art, Cincom uses the ACE Method to help ourselves go through the discovery process in an orderly, organized way. All strategic processes are based on information. The better the information the better can become the strategic thought which guides and shapes strategy. We seek to discover information about a specific organization and then move to understanding what it means. From understanding we move to wisdom, which helps us determine which actions to take and how to act in a situation. This gathering of information has to do with the rational realm because it helps us gain information about objective factors of the company.
At the same time, as we work with the company to identify and discern objective, and , we gather information about emotional factors of the customer as well as we try to figure out what is going on in the minds and the feelings of our customer.
Flickr photo courtesy of Toes McGee
How emotions move us
The word “emotions” come from the Latin word “movere,” meaning to move. Therefore, it makes sense that it is our emotions, and not necessarily our knowledge, that moves us. But, as rational creatures, we are reluctant to admit that we are moved by the heart and not the mind. The truth is that quite often emotion trumps rationality which is why a seemingly small emotional “trump card” can overtake a larger rational argument. We like to say we thought this through rationally, and therefore we’ve made a logical decision. But in many cases, the decision has already been made emotionally and now we’re looking for rational arguments to justify that emotion.
Emotion can also determine how we think or how we, perceive, and hence receive, information. So really the great salespersons and the great marketing organizations ask themselves questions like, ‘What are these emotions? What are the wants of the people? How do they feel about things? And what are these particular items that we’re trying to sell going to do to satisfy that?’
Internal or external senses?
Throughout all of these processes we use our five external senses – sight, sound, taste, touch and smell. But we also have five internal senses. These internal senses are extremely important to us. But not all people can’t name them.
The first one is what is called the ‘imaginative sense’, the imagination. We have an ability to imagine things that don’t exist, maybe have never existed. But we can imagine these situations and we can create very interesting things, fantasies if you will. And there’s a lot of value in this to us.
The second internal sense we have is one that is known as the ‘estimative sense,’ or the ability to estimate, quickly judge and make decisions. In the estimative sense we ask ourselves, ‘What chance does this have of working? What’s the probability? How will this work?’ Risk and reward analysis is the reason of the “estimative sense.”
The third internal sense we have is ‘the memory’. We use the memory to learn. The memory helps us to know something and a situation might come up where we say, “Oh yeah, I remember this happening.” And we draw on our memory banks for different alternatives or choices that we might have used. We remember how the alternatives worked out so the memory not only helps us to learn, but also helps us to associate and analyze as we can can recall different things and their relationships to past events or experiences.
The fourth internal sense is ‘the intellect.’ This is our reasoning power. The intellect deals in knowledge. The more we know the more power we potentially have. We must know things and we must be able to reason and this is done by the intellect. The intellect feeds off of information provided by the memory.
And finally we get to ‘the will.’ The will deals with volition or why do we make choices and do certain things. The objective of the will is to make good choices, to choose in a disciplined fashion, even something that might be hard for us. So the will needs to be disciplined or controlled. It needs to be strengthened so that it doesn’t take the easy way, because the easy way may not necessarily be the right way. As H.L. Mencken once famously wrote: “There is always an easy solution to every human problem — neat, plausible and wrong.”
Fear or importance?
In the book, The Six Selling Secrets, the author says that there are many emotions in play and at work, but he tries to reduce most of the emotions to three categories – ‘craving for a sense of importance,’ ‘fear of loss’ and a ‘desire for unworked for, or easily gotten, gain.’ He says that if you are tuned for these kinds of emotional forces or motives, you will typically be able to discern in the person these emotions at work, because, he says, everybody has them.
The emotions need to be controlled because they’re immediately going to react and the emotional forces can override rational forces. Besides, few people can think well when in an emotionally agitated state. So we can have very good rational arguments that we’ve developed, good information, good logic. But in the end, emotions quite often guide and govern decisions. As they say, “love is blind,” we don’t logically fall in love, beceause love is a fruit of the “heart,” or the symbolic sense of emotions.
Branding emotions
Corporations understand this very well, and that’s why the branding exercise, is such a high powered, important part of the success of major corporations. The objective of branding is to gain a preference for your product so that, all things being equal, people will prefer your product or service versus someone else’s. Branding is so powerful because it works on the emotions. And the emotions deal with, many times, the ideas of security and safety, which are two of the most important needs on American psychologist Abraham Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs.”
Flickr photo courtesy of SavetheDave
Now, the branding function within Cincom, and almost all other software companies which can’t afford to spend hundreds of millions or billions of dollars a year promoting themselves to the public, is largely aidedby the selling function. Such organizations try to gain preference for their products when they go into an account, cultivate relationships and learn about the economic values or satisfactions for the emotional wants or needs where, all things being equal except price or terms or conditions, they will win preference.
A sales team is a community of advantage. So when different members of that team work well together, that community gains an advantage. Successful outcomes demand that all work together in the selling cycle, and communicate among all team members so everyone knows what they’re trying to do, and everyone can be counted on to perform optimally knowing that they are not in control of things because the customer will make the ultimate decision.
Sellers must understand the controlling emotions: the desire for a sense of importance, the fear of loss or risk, and the desire for easily gotten gains. When we’re talking about objective factors at work in a sales cycle, people are usually willing to talk because they may say, “We want to objectively do what’s best for the company. Our objective is to choose the right products, to make the right decisions, to get the maximized returns.” Objectively, they will more freely talk about those things than they will the subjective factors, like gaining prestige or advantage within their organization.
What’s your Favorite Radio Station? WII-FM – What’s in it for me?
Customers are reluctant to expose their real emotional wants and interests because these may be both shallow and selfish. So a seller can’t very well directly say their product will get the buyer a promotion because that may offend them. So sellers must become very sophisticated in how they understand what emotional forces are at work. And once one understands those emotional forces, he must think through: ‘How will they probably act? What appeals can we subtly make? How do we provide what’s in it for them?’
People will weigh all of these factors. The ability to understand them and move forward determines what is likely to happen. Sometimes customers will trade off some economic value for some personal advantage and emotional gain, or they will tradeoff some personal advantage and emotional gain for greater economic value for the firm. Figuring out the balance of value and how to present that is what strategic selling and gaining winning situations is all about. All strategies are based on information. The better the information, the better can become the strategy.
Just like all athletes want to win, so do those engaging in sales cycles. We can’t just perform well or do a lot of work because in the end our objective of the sales cycle is not just to try, or to work hard, but to win. To succeed, one must organize all thought processes and all actions to answer the questions: Will this help to win? What would be needed to win here? And what is it the primary objectives of the customer?
Discerning and understanding these questions and helping everyone to gather information that will enhance and aid strategy will collectively increase team knowledge and the power of a community of advantage. That’s why sales reps must communicate well with support people, star teams and others. The better this is done, the more success will be gained.
Emotions, emotional forces and emotional factors are powerful. They may be overriding in many decisions. One must be alert to this, but that doesn’t mean that one doesn’t also need to go through the work of developing the economic justification, and the economic evaluation. Normally people will not say, “I’m making this decision for emotional reasons,” so they may use economic, objective or rational logic to justify, or disguise the basis of, their emotionally led decisions.
Anxiety and Its Antidotes … For Business and Life
January 21st, 2010
“Dum spiro spero.” – Motto of St. Andrew’s Golf Club
Anxiety!
When a person is confronted with some significant event or experience that is believed to be both important and uncertain they may feel anxious. This anxiety-generating situation may be one that is filled with possibility and opportunity, or danger and threat. Either way, anxiety almost always develops when there is significant opportunity – or danger.
When both opportunity and danger are present at the very same time, the anxiety can become intense. That’s what makes television shows, such as “Deal or No Deal,” “American Idol,” or any other such “survival” type of uncertain situation where one can either win or lose so exciting.
Not only is there anxiety for those directly involved, but also for their friends and supporters, and the audiences as well. For those not directly involved, anxiety tends to increase relative to the degree of identity, or interest, with those directly involved – which is why so many television shows now have audiences participate in voting as they then become directly involved with the anxious situation.
According to “Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary,” anxiety is:
“a painful or apprehensive uneasiness of mind usually over an impending or anticipated ill; an abnormal and overwhelming sense of apprehension and fear often marked by physiological signs (as sweating, tension and increased pulse), by doubt concerning the reality and nature of the threat, and by self-doubt about one’s capacity to cope with it.”
Vexatious Vexations
Anxiety is vexatious because it develops and grows in the human faculty of the subconscious and heavily effects and agitates various emotions. Since the subconscious and emotions are non-reasoning, or non-intellectual human faculties, logic or reasoning are inadequate means to manage or assuage anxieties. Experience, self-discipline, self-control and other means of coping are necessary aids in successfully dealing with the torments of anxiety that can be debilitating and even paralyzing to human thought and action.
A Powerful Antidote
St. Andrew’s Golf Club
Perhaps the most powerful of all antidotes to anxiety is a positive and optimistic attitude. Maybe that’s why The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews chose as its motto the Latin phrase “Dum Spiro Spero.” This phrase, said to have been first stated by Cicero but more universally attributed to St. Andrew, one of the twelve Apostles, translates to the very positive and optimistic phrase:
“While I breathe, I hope.”
The world of sports and athletic competition is widely followed precisely because of the uncertainty involved and the anxiety produced. However, anxiety generates not only interest and emotional experiences for fans or supporters, but can also influence outcomes or results for participants who may have self-doubts about their capacity to cope with the challenges.
Anxiety in Golf
For athletes, anxiety can be debilitating. So confidence in one’s self and the ability to cope with extreme challenge is necessary and admired. These traits make athletes winners. They know how to win and take every opportunity to do so.
Anxiety is a part of every athletic competition. But,it is perhaps most readily seen in championship golf, especially so for the major championships. In such situations, the desire to achieve and the pressure to perform are at their peak. Moreover, the more real the opportunity is to win, the greater the risk of the emotional distress that anxiety inevitably causes.
The 2005 U.S. Women’s Open championship provides an excellent example of this phenomenon. That year, three American women were at the very top of the leader board after the third round. Two of the women were teenage amateurs: Morgan Pressel had just turned 17 and Michelle Wie was 15-years-old. Paula Creamer, the third woman had then recently turned professional, but was still only 18-years-old.
Each had talent, potential and a desire to win, but the anxiety caused by being in a position to win such an important tournament proved to be too much for them. Each shot their worst round of the tournament on its final day.
Pressel, who had been only one over par for her total score during all of the first three rounds, scored four over par on the final day; Creamer ballooned to eight over par 79 on that last round; and Wie skyrocketed to 11 over par 82, the second highest score of the day.
It was not a lack of talent that inflated their scores, though. More than likely, they were victims of anxiety.
Anxiety struck again in 2007 at the Kraft Nabisco Ladies’ Championship. One-by-one the golfers who had been leading the tournament in its early days shot well over par as the tournament progressed. Morgan Pressel, however, was one of the first golfers to complete the course. She wasn’t an early contender to win, as her score before the final round wasn’t that competitive. But, relieved of the anxious pressure to win, she played well and ended up winning as the other leading golfers scored poorly on the last few holes.
It might not be unfair to suggest that the other golfers lost the tournament more than Pressel won it because she finished earlier than most of the major contenders she didn’t face all of the anxiety that they had. Therefore, she was better able to play at her normal high-quality level of performance.
What Does All This Mean?
What does all of this professional golf analysis and possible speculation have to do with business? It is most certainly not meant to criticize any of the athletes who suffered anguish from unsuccessfully coping with anxiety. Rather, it is meant to show that while skills, talents and desires are important to gaining success, the personal control of the psychological and emotional factors that anxiety produces is also of immense importance. This is similarly so for those who seek to achieve in virtually every field of endeavor, and affects people of all ages, from the very young to the very old, and the novices to the experienced.
It Is So … Even Though It Hasn’t Happened Yet
The self-confidence that enables a person, or an organization, to perform each necessary execution as though they have already achieved success, even before that stage is reached, is vital. To feel, or believe, that one is not yet worthy, or able, to achieve success impedes many. Such attitudes cause persons, and organizations, to do, or fail to do, some things that may cause them to lose important competitive opportunities, rather than force the competitor to win.
Courage
One must concentrate on developing the skills necessary to compete at the highest levels, if one is to be able to excel in competitive environments. These capabilities are not enough. Courage, confidence, self-assurance, self-control and the ability to stay “cool” under pressure are also necessary if one is to be able to manage anxiety.
Maximize the Positive – Minimize the Negative
External support is also important, though one should never mention the risks and dangers present or the possibilities of failure. The idea is to emphasize the positives and to minimize all negative suggestions. Teammates, coaches, managers, spouses, parents, partners, teachers, aides and assistants, caddies and others who are closely engaged or involved with another can be supportive colleagues in facilitating successful accomplishments.[3]
The word “colleague” is derived from a French word that means “to arrive together.” Associates and colleagues who participate in a success are quite often “unsung heroes” who help another mightily. That’s why some teams, and organizations, are so powerful. They collectively “arrive together” in a success as they help create an environment of encouragement and support that fosters both personal and group achievement.
All the team members should realize this. Each plays a part in whatever personal or team success is accomplished. This part includes both good execution of each one’s own duties and responsibilities as well as the need to morally and emotionally support and encourage the others involved. Each can also be a part, or a cause, of a failure.
Nothing relevant to success must be left undone, or done inadequately by anyone involved.
It’s Contagious
While personal anxiety may be largely self-induced, it is also contagious. One’s fears, doubts and apprehensions can be transmitted, because they come from the subconscious. Since the human subconscious receives information at rates as much as 500,000 times faster than the reasoning conscious intellect can function, fear, uncertainty and doubt can spread much faster and become more pervasive than reasoned logic can respond. That’s why bad news seems to so often run rampant through a community, while the uplifting good news and positive facts seem to usually travel at a much slower pace.
Create a Positive, Encouraging Environment
Positive personal orientation, along with a supportive, encouraging environment, is necessary to counter anxiety before it has more thoroughly contaminated oneself, and others. Debilitated, discouraged, disheartened persons, and organizations become quickly disoriented and disabled. However, anxieties serve a useful means to aid and alert human intuitiveness and instincts to risks and dangers.
Human character and strength must be developed to be able to usefully and positively manage anxieties, rather than allow anxieties to prevail, debilitate and paralyze persons and organizations and by doing so enable anxiety to defeat, in advance, many otherwise constructive and helpful opportunities, which can lead to success.
Photos courtesy of Google Images and from Flickr user Banchee
Marketing Insights Gained from Military Strategy
January 5th, 2010
Flickr photo courtesy of JeremyBarwick
All of recorded history confirms that the relative strength of a nation’s military power largely determines the degree it can assert and enforce its imperialistic, economic and political aims. The waxing and waning of its relative military power tends to closely correspond with the rise and fall of nations.
Similarly, the relative power of a commercial organization’s marketing, sales and distribution capabilities largely determines the success or failure of a business worldwide.
Perhaps for these reasons, analogies of various military strategies have been used to illustrate marketing and selling mechanisms and means. Certain ideas of military strategy are important for all who are engaged in commercial competitive activities. These are the ideas of maneuver, and especially of flanking movements.
Maneuvering and Flanking a Vulnerability
In marketing terms, a flank is a point of vulnerability or opportunity with a major customer or in a large market, which is sometimes called a niche.
If a competitor successfully takes this opportunity it can become a launching point from which the competitor can further encroach on large markets and specific customers.
Winston Churchill describes this phenomenon in his series entitled “The World Crises.” In that series he states that maneuver is necessary before one group can flank another.
Maneuvering is typical of competition during the early and developing stages of a market. Almost every great company establishes themselves by maneuvering themselves into a position where it is considered the best choice for customers.
This maneuverability must also remain a main focus of organizations once they mature as they keep track of the major established segments in the total market. This obsession with maneuvering can leave new, vulnerable flanks in the market, which smaller organizations can attack with specialty products and offerings.
Examples of flanking movements can be seen in almost any industry as smaller firms recognize and take advantage of weaknesses to surpass well-established competitors.
The Automobile Industry
Flickr photo courtesy of Urbanwoodswalker
During the 20th century, Ford and General Motors (GM) became dominant auto providers by offering innovative products like the Mustang and the Corvette. While they are two separate companies, their offerings seem to show very little differentiation today. Their sales and marketing strategy was a head-to-head combat in which they strove to wear the other down by maximizing value, quality and discounts instead of distinguishing the providers.
Such strategies left the innovative field almost completely open to other companies, like Honda, Nissan and Toyota, which were looking to break into the American market.
In the 1960s and 70s, Japanese auto providers saw that the low cost, fuel-efficient auto market was an exposed flank that Ford and GM weren’t paying much attention to. They moved in accordingly and began offering products to fill this gap. This was their initial niche, from which they all subsequently expanded their offerings.
Later, Toyota saw a different but similarly exposed flank in the ultra-prestige markets. They attacked with the Lexus’ quiet, high-performance V8 engine which out-maneuvered the BMW 750 and the much higher-priced Mercedes by offering similar quality and style at a much lower price.
Chrysler, a lesser-American auto maker didn’t have the funds to compete head-to-head with GM and Ford. Instead, they attacked another flank with the minivan in the 1980s and the retro-style PT Cruiser in 2000, effectively creating new markets which they have managed to hold onto.
Complexity of Strategy Demands Orchestration and Communication
Clearly, there are many different types of flanks and the coordination of the processes and roles needed to capitalize on these can become quite complex.
Complex situation demand that “plans can be concerted in common,” and that there be a “common clearing house where the different relative values could be established and exchanged,” according to Churchill. Failure to have the necessary information, insights,determination and energies to put such systems in place often proves extremely damaging and costly.
Within the computer and software industries, there are many examples of major opportunities having been overlooked or neglected due to this failure.
The Computer Industry
The Digital Equipment Corporation offers an example of a failing to seize on adjacent markets in high tech industries.
After growing very rapidly in the 1970s and 80s, Digital decided to abandon its third-party sales and distribution systems which were largely responsible for its growth and success. Instead, they became a direct selling organization.
Without the power of those third-party selling relationships, Digital’s growth slowed dramatically and its share price began to fall from its high of $200 per share all the way down to $25 per share, where the then virtually prostrate Digital was acquired by Compaq.
Subsequently, Compaq also lost its way when the former Digital and Compaq staffs could not diminish the “distinction between politics and strategy” internally. Eventually, Compaq came to believe that its only alternative to viability was to be merged into Hewlett-Packard, which was done in 2002.
Accepted Ideas Can Restrict Innovative Thinking
Flickr photo courtesy of Ken Roberts Photography
One of the deficiencies of some business leaders is the tendency to think too narrowly, while ignoring their vulnerable flanks. Another common failing is to remain committed to practices, thinking and political forces that are no longer competitive.
Habituated mentalities too often cause failings that restrict one’s organization so that it becomes imperiled by encroachments from diverse flanking attacks and maneuvers from new innovations and discoveries. A classic example is the American railroad industry.
Always seeing itself as being “in the railroad business,” and not in the shipping or transportation industries, railroads saw themselves lose major shipping volumes to the trucking industry and virtually all of its passenger travel to airlines, buses and automobiles. Today, the once immensely powerful American railroad industry is but a faint shadow of its former force.
The Need for Coordinated and Rapid Action by Diverse Resources
Refusing to recognize the need to diversify in a market is only part of the problem. Once a company or industry innovates, it must mobilize and coordinate adequate and diverse resources quickly in order to capitalize on flanking and maneuvering opportunities. Success, however, demands that this be accomplished with accurate information, sound strategy and good execution.
While this article focuses on the losses some companies face when they are flanked by other innovative firms, there is always a successful party in these situations. Cincom, itself, has seen many successes in this area of initial niche marketing, which enabled subsequent expansions into more opportunities.
Penetration, Radiation and Collaboration
It is necessary for any developing organization to establish initial customers to generate the revenues needed to sustain and support the firm as it seeks to expand. Beyond these initial and vital requirements, the first penetrations into a marketplace provide the basis and the foundation for recognition and further radiation. This radiation can be within an industry, a geographic area, a technology or product offering, or a large customer.
For example, in its early years Cincom began to offer the database management system TOTAL to manufacturing firms. But, as TOTAL was being perfected among manufacturing customers, Cincom realized that organizations in every area of activity had a data relationship and data management need. Based upon the successes of the penetration made within its early manufacturing customers, TOTAL radiated its success into insurance, banking, medical, government and other industries.
Geographically, Cincom’s strategy was also one of radiation from its headquarters in Cincinnati into reasonably adjacent, and similarly sized areas like Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Cleveland and Indianapolis. However, as it became more successful, Cincom began to subsequently target larger American cities as a part of our flanking maneuvers into all major markets worldwide.
Cincom was also one of the first software firms to radiate internationally as it maneuvered itself to be a global company with operations in Toronto, Montreal, London, Paris, Tokyo, Sydney and other major international marketplaces. Eventually, Cincom had a larger international presence than it had in it’s American markets.
Cincom also realized that both IBM users and non-IBM customers had a need and a desire for a DBMS such as TOTAL. Therefore, it began to promote alliances with various non-IBM computer providers through third-party computer companies such as NCR, Honeywell, CDC and others. No other software company developed such a market flanking strategy into the secondary computer user marketplace.
Building Relationships
Marketing studies have shown that 10 to 15 percent of all buying choices are made because of a product’s features, functionality or appeal; 10 to 15 percent are made because of price and acquisition terms; but 70 to 80 percent of all buying decisions are based upon relationships. Therefore, the establishment and the successful development of happy, productive and mutually beneficial relationships are of paramount importance.
When a customer is discerning which product to buy, a potential provider’s efforts are seen as “sales promotion,” which may have a negative connotation in the marketplace. Once the customer chooses a provider, however, their new offerings, and promotions can be more welcomed, if only because the two companies now have a relationship.
Once this relationship is in place, customer contacts are often viewed more as an appreciated service of customer support, and not as sales efforts. In fact, a lack of such post-sales contact by the provider is often considered to be neglect by the customer. In such cases, customers tend to retaliate by not buying additional products from the provider. Therefore, customer care becomes an opportunity for a cultivation of a major relationship between the customer and the provider, while a failure to satisfactorily perform becomes a source of potential estrangement.
Keeping all of this in mind, a company can have a successful relationship with their customers for many years. But, they also must make sure they pay attention to their customers changing wants and needs and to their own weaknesses so they aren’t flanked by the competition.
Principles Rule: Mastering the Art of Business
September 18th, 2009
Entrepreneurial success, like success in any pursuit, is about the consummate understanding and mastery of key principles — not about following rules.
A rule states, “You must do it this way.”
A principle says, “This works – and usually works well – and has done so through all remembered time.”
The difference is crucial.
The anxious and inexperienced try to follow rules. The rebellious, unschooled and ignorant break rules – usually unwittingly so. Worse still, all of these types of practitioners try to succeed focusing upon only subsets of situations without realizing how all of the forces at work interact in both conflicting and supporting ways.
But the master of an art, any art, develops mastery over the form of the art using time-tested and time-proven principles.
Mastery of the art should be the ideal of every entrepreneur.
Photo courtesy of Storm Crypt
Machiavelli and a host of others have written about the ways and wiles of princes, but not in a manner that is of best use in a world of free enterprise. Locke has impactfully written on the rights of popular assemblies against kings, but how does this help businesses to compete against a host of alternatives?
In similar ways, the teachings on business, commerce, marketing and sales by many fine authors who have never been entrepreneurs – as valuable as they may be – must be accommodated to the world of the entrepreneur as each tries to build one’s own future.
Differentiation is as important as innovation.
Photo courtesy of Macklelundberg
In these processes, one most surely will focus upon innovation of some type. But, every successful entrepreneur well knows that differentiation is at least as important, maybe even more so, as is innovation. Innovation focuses upon the provider’s offerings; differentiation focuses upon the value, satisfaction, utility or delight that the innovation provides to the customer.
Innovation without differentiation seldom produces optimal appeal to potential customers or best results for the seller. Commerce, entrepreneurship, and our personal undertakings have much in common.
It might even be said that each of us in our own way and everyday living is a type of entrepreneur. We see and seek various opportunities that we hope will satisfy various wants and needs we may have – and we then pursue these opportunities and possibilities using various ways and means that are consistent with our values and our ethical and moral standards. As free persons, we tend to pursue those things that we want to achieve, and the more we desire or love what we are trying to accomplish, the better and more eager we will become in that pursuit.
What the pursuit of happiness is all about.
Sure, we want to succeed in those pursuits, but we also want to do so in ways that we will feel good about and which we trust will help us to become a better, happier and more fulfilled person. That’s what the American ideal of the “pursuit of happiness” is all about. But, happiness is seldom achieved in the doing or pursuit of something one does not feel deeply about.
In our various pursuits, we each are both a theorist and a pragmatist. Our difficulties arise in relating one to another. We must at the same time be persons of thought, and persons of action. The more thorough the thought, the better are the probabilities that the choices we make and the actions we effect will be correct ones. And the more energetic the actions, the more clearly must become the thought processes, lest we wear ourselves to exhaustion in bad choices, ways, and means, all of which produce little positive results.
Uniting the “is now” with the “ought to be” and the “will be.”
Sometimes, maybe most times, we start only with the vaguest and murkiest of ideas, and refine or clarify them as we become engaged in the pursuit. But, the degree of entrepreneurial talent is largely determined by how well one is able to unite into a sound synthesis of theory and practice, ends and means, and the “is now” with the “ought to be” and the perseverance to have these become fashioned into that “will be” of the future which changes everything about one’s self, and one’s situation.
“Commanding Knowledge” is not an extended awareness into every nook, cranny, and crevice of the situation.
It means thorough knowledge of everything germane and relevant.
The difference is crucial.
In these endeavors, one must possess a commanding knowledge of one’s field, the setting and the situations. Problems are always opportunities in disguise, but one must thoroughly understand the problems before one can provide unique or preferred solutions. But, “commanding knowledge” does not mean an extended awareness into every nook and cranny and every crevice of an existent situation. Rather, it means thorough knowledge of everything germane and relevant.
Thus, each of us also largely crafts our own self forward as we seek to accomplish our professional pursuits. But, we do not do so alone – or in a vacuum. Many forces are always at work – some are friendly and helpful, and others are antagonistic and hurtful.
Constraints conspire to inspire.
But, the greatest achievers usually find conflicts, difficulties, obstacles and obstructions to be somehow useful. The more resistant the opposing forces, the stronger become the muscle that strains against them. This is also true for our professional competencies. Among the best and brightest, constraints don’t inhibit creativity and resourcefulness; they encourage, stimulate, and inspire them. Too often antagonistic and hurtful forces conspire with their own inadequacies and limitations to undermine the efforts of achieving-oriented persons. Success demands that these “resistances” be somehow overcome — or better still, be used to achieve goals
Since all of this involves a great number of human beings, the entrepreneurial genius lies heavily in developing a realistic and astute view and understanding of human nature. The first such understanding is the realization that human nature is protean to the ultimate. The next understanding is that we humans are mixtures of extremes, and not a blended average. We each are as good as the best that we have done, and as bad as the worst.
So, a successful entrepreneur, like anyone who is able to positively and constructively interact with others, has neither a utopian, nor a pessimistic view of human beings. Rather, they know that people are a mixture of
And an almost endless variety of contraries with the less-becoming elements of our makeup are too often predominant.
In this baffling mixture of traits that seems to be always changing with situation and circumstance, we must somehow function, making our lives as we try to make our living. This ceaseless effort to make our living makes us. Just as we are shaped by our environments, and by others, we each also further shape, in various ways, the environment we inhabit, and the others with whom we interdependently interact.
The world is full of immediate possibilities and restraining practicalities. And this is as it must be. We want, and need, the liberty and freedom to pursue our own heart’s delight. But, there must be laws, rules, regulations and codes of conduct that restrain and regulate each of us lest we damage the liberties and freedoms that others also, by right, are entitled to have and to enjoy.
Honor. Integrity. Conscience. Ethics. Values. Morals.
Each entrepreneur will seek to lead an organization that reflects the substance, style, and structure that is consistent with each one’s own visions and values. The better and clearer those visions and values become, the more attractive and energizing they become to those who the entrepreneur must both attract and lead. And this attractiveness must be both a magnetic attractiveness and an appealing attraction as well. Both meanings of attractiveness must prevail.
Trust builds relationships; execution builds results.
Trust is, and always will be, the coin of the realm.
Businesses must attract customers, staff, and capital. In these attractions, trust is the coin of the realm. So, trust must never be depreciated or violated in any way. In the various halls and rooms of Cincom’s offices throughout the world, we feature a poster that succinctly advises that, “Trust Builds Relationships; Execution Builds Results.”
Trust and respect are twin imperatives of all success, and of all positive, constructive relationships.
In the End
Results determine whether a business succeeds or fails. Results are driven by productivity. Productivity is a principle cast in iron. Production must be greater than costs. Pragmatism and excellence of execution are both essential. But, so too is everything else upon which trust and respect are created.
Productivity is a principle cast in iron.
Photo courtesy Lawrence OP
Production must be greater than costs.
Mastery of the entrepreneurial art is a difficult yet noble pursuit. Entrepreneurs have always changed the world for the better in many ways, large and small. Along the way all will face adversity, triumphs and tragedies. When struggling or in doubt … go back to the beginning and remember …
Principles rule.
The master of the entrepreneurial art uses time-tested and time-proven principles.
A Vanishing Skill: Stories, Storytelling, Story Selling
September 15th, 2009Good stories fascinate us all. They always have. They always will. Basically, there are two types of stories: Truth Stories and True Stories.
Truth Stories
The first type, that is, Truth Stories, are those that convey timeless messages that convey universal truths. Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey were the first Truth Stories.
EPIC
Ulysses Confronts the Cyclops Polyphemus – Jacob Jordaens
These epic stories respectively recounted the Trojan War and the journeys of Ulysses. They were stories about heroes and their roles in epic events. These stories were orally communicated, sung by traveling bands for centuries. In the process of communication, these stories were doubtless enhanced and extended. So, they had many authors.
The Message Is the Point – Maybe Not the Truth
“Fear Greeks Bearing Gifts,” – Lacoon on the Trojan Horse
They were Truth Stories because they contained great moral lessons.
Some of the content may have even been true. But, including the true into Truth Stories is beside the point. The message(s) is the point—not necessarily the facts.
Achilles, Hector, Ulysses, Ajax, Paris, even Helen of Troy and the Trojan Horse may never have existed. Many have wondered whether Troy itself ever existed. And, even though there must have been a first initiation of at least some of the story, some wonder …
… “Who was, or were, Homer?” “Did he even exist?” But really, who cares?
Truth Stories are not dependent upon whether their characters, events, or even their author, were ever true.
The Real Value—Meaning
Their value is in the Truth, or the meaning, of their message and the lessons offered, not their truthfulness.
True Stories
True Stories, by comparison, do attempt to tell what is true.
The first of these True Stories were history stories formally written (not told) by Herodotus. He is, therefore, known as the Father of History.
Begin with Inquiry
The word history itself gives us insights into their intent. The word history (historie) in Greek, of Ionian origin, meant inquiry. We may speak of Homeric epics, though there may never have been a Homer, but history begins with historians. It is they who do the inquiries that uncover the facts that they report as histories.
From There to Eternity
Their stories are intended to be formally stated True Stories. Ideally, they may also contain eternal and universal Truths, or moral lessons. If so, they can become eternally admired and regularly quoted and retold stories as well.
Herodotus began his history with these words:
“These are the researches of Herodotus of Halicarnassus, which he publishes, in the hope of thereby preserving from decay the remembrance of what men have done, and of preventing the great and wonderful actions of the Greeks and the Barbarians, from losing their due mead of glory; and withal to put on record what were the grounds of feud.”
So, Herodotus formally wrote his history. That way, his history would not be subject to the ongoing changes that a verbally communicated message always tends to experience.
Why Is This Important in Business?
Every day wonderful things happen in your business. And every day some not-so-wonderful things happen. They need to be remembered, passed on and learned from. Both the “Truth Stories” and the “True Stories.”
I’ve found that to be successful in business, you have to be a great communicator. The best communicators are the storytellers that grab you by emotion, seize your mind and prompt you to action. They take you on a magical journey, if only for a moment.
Businesses need Stories, Storytellers and Story Sellers to succeed in the market.
A Vanishing Skill
Unfortunately, the values and the importance of the ideas of Stories, Storytelling and Story-Selling may not be as well understood by many of us. Nor may all of their many implications and possibilities be fully realized and appreciated by all of us to the degree they deserve.
Don’t Just Be a Face in the Crowd
Think Like a Storyteller
It might be hard. It might get lonely. But stories resonate through all human beings in all cultures and have throughout time.
I urge you to think about all of the events and experiences with which you may be involved, or have seen or heard about, that would make good stories to help your business. You don’t have to write them yourselves if you feel uncomfortable about it. Find someone in your company that will support your efforts. There are storytellers in your business somewhere … or your business wouldn’t exist. Provide them with your story ideas. Stories that can either be True Stories or Truth Stories – but ideally they would be both.
Timeless and Timely Business Lessons
We have now been in the software business here at Cincom for 40 years. Two of the lessons learned from our 40 years of business are timeless and timely. Essential and eternal. Pathways through rugged and trying times.
I pass them on to you to—like Herodotus said, “in the hope of thereby preserving from decay the remembrance of what people have done,” but also that they may help the reader as they pursue their own successful ideas and ideals for the next 40 years.
Long Ago and Far Away
Long ago and far away (from Silicon Valley anyway) in September of 1968, a radical idea for a new product and a new company was born in a Cincinnati basement; an idea that took seed with $600, a card table, and a dream.
A Daunting Dream
The challenges of the dream were daunting: create, market, and sell a product that one of the biggest companies in the world (IBM) was giving away for free.
No Product, No Customers, No Industry
That dream also included no venture capital; no one would finance it.
Why?
Because no one understood it. Software or softwear? What’s that, clothes? One bank actually thought that. Why? This was seven years before Microsoft was founded in 1975. Nine years before Oracle was founded in 1977. And, this was in Cincinnati, Ohio… not Silicon Valley.
Forty Years Later?
Forty years of pioneering, advancement, and leadership in a turbulent and unforgiving software industry followed from this company and its employees. Governors, President Ronald Reagan, Former British Prime Minister Heath, the Smithsonian Institute, and Harvard Business School among many other prestigious organizations have recognized its efforts.
Built to Last on Two Simple Concepts
Though the Cincom dream was daunting, risky, and some thought impossible, Cincom built that dream to last on two simple concepts: create and serve.
Create
Cincom employees create software and services products that solve real business problems, and they have been since 1968.
These products create customers.
Serve
Serve the customers as well as the employees who create the products.
What You Really Need to Know
Without customers, there can be no service. Without service, there will be no customers.
“One of the reasons I’ve chosen to keep Cincom a private corporation is that I believe companies should put their customers first, and the people who are serving those customers a very close second.” – Thomas Nies, Cincom CEO
Built-to-last is built on “Create and Serve.”
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Flickr photo #2 courtesy of E.Gold
Flickr photo #3 coutesy of Peter Van Allen
Mind Our Mindsets … Move the World
September 4th, 2009
The economy. Gas prices. Housing. Credit crisis. Healthcare. Education. War. Terrorism.
Yes. We face significant problems.
Albert Einstein once stated that,
“The significant problems we face cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.”
An adaptation of this comment produced as a bumper sticker subtly personalized and criticized some of those in modern society with this question:
“Can the problems we face be solved by the same minds that created them?”
Einstein’s comment is the more tactful; the bumper sticker is more pointed. Both direct the needs for solution to the quality and depth of thinking.
The answers?
Mastering Mindsets
Since almost all thinking is conditioned by various predispositions and diverse subjective factors, it may be useful to also think about “mindsets” rather than just minds, or thinking processes. While knowledge, skill, intelligence and other mind-oriented attributes are key assets and requirements toward all success, the true “masterminds” may be those who also master their mindsets.
The positive, optimistic attitudes are key hallmarks of the “can do, will do” mindset that is essential to, and absolutely necessary for, all high achievement in every endeavor or pursuit. Such mindsets not only help to gain achievement, but they also help to enlarge and imagine new possibilities and opportunities.
It’s a Force—Good and Bad
Mindsets are more than just an attribute—they’re also an energizing and directing force. But, depending on the bent of one’s mindset, it can also be a demoralizing and limiting factor. So powerful is mindset that it might be said that mindsets move minds. Perhaps without overstating this point, it might even be said that mindsets manage minds.
Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D., is one of the world’s leading researchers in the field of motivation and is a Professor of Psychology at Stanford University. In her seminal book, “Mindsets: The New Psychology of Success,” she identifies two basic types of mindsets.
Fixed
People with a fixed mindset (those who believe their intelligence is fixed) prefer to do things that will make them look smart and that will shore up their image instead of things that can stretch them and help them increase their skills. This is true even when they might badly need those new skills.
Growth
People with a growth mindset (those who believe their abilities can be cultivated) are highly eager to learn, even if it means that they will make mistakes and expose their deficiencies.
A “Growth Mindset is a critical element of success—in life or business.
“Learning is not compulsory … neither is survival.” – W. Edwards Deming
Learn. Learn. Learn.
But in your learning, be precise.
Precision Mindsets
As we travel in any modern airliner, we may suspect, but not sensibly realize, that we may be often, if not perhaps always, slightly off course. But, the navigation systems in calculus-like ways are regularly adjusting the course, in minute steps, as frequently as is needed to have the airplane travel and land almost precisely as intended safely at its destination. But the aircraft does not land with perfect precision. Rather, it lands as precisely as is necessary. This idea that providing solutions, or systems that operate to the degree of perfection that is necessary, is an important one to consider.
But, however difficult it may be to measure and monitor all of these effects, still the requirement for the varying degrees of precision and perfection demanded from the products and services offered can usually be quite accurately determined. In some cases, with which many of us are very familiar, such as the quality and reliability of the mission-critical software that Cincom offers, we realize that the degree of perfection necessary is very high indeed.
Pursuit of Perfection
This need for virtual perfection in our software development, testing, quality assurance and other software-perfecting processes is all the more challenging when one considers the great variety of usage environments, and the almost unlimited interactions of user transactions and application processes. In many ways, living and life are just like the perfection of software. We can never test, and thus quality assure, for every one of the virtually infinite number of possibilities or variables. One can never be certain, nor in complete control of all that may happen.
Still, no matter how complex the problems our software must solve, and how infinitely variable their needs may be, customers want virtually perfect reliability and accuracy. Life too is similar. No matter how unpredictable or challenging the times and the uncertainties may be, we are called upon to cope and respond in the many ways that produce the best possible outcomes for all involved—whether directly or indirectly.
Our Mindset
Whatever job one may have, product one may create or service one may deliver, our mindset should be the “pursuit of perfection—that can lead to a perfect customer experience in business—and in life, lead to a fulfilling and meaningful existence.
“To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.” – Winston Churchill
No software system, or any product or service, can ever be considered to be absolutely perfect. So we tend to pursue such perfection in incremental steps that enable us to deliver systems that are as precise as they need to be, remember:
No product is perfect.
No service is perfect.
No business is perfect.
No person is perfect.
But all can pursue, with a determined and focused mindset, perfection, and by doing so, everyone will be the better for it.
One thing is certain. Along the way, mistakes will be made. Yes. Absolutely. But that’s ok.
“If I had to live my life again, I’d make the same mistakes, only sooner.” – Tallulah Bankhead
Make our mistakes—sooner. Learn from them and improve.
But We Still Face Significant Problems
Yes, we do.
The economy. Gas prices. Housing. Credit crisis. Healthcare. Education. War. Terrorism.
What are we waiting for? Problems can’t be fixed by the thinking that created them. But new thinking, imagination, guts, innovations and bold, brave ideas can.
“Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Only engage, and the mind grows heated.
Begin it, and the work will be completed.
Begin it now.” – Gothe
Mastery of the world, its problems, its difficulties, begins with mastery of each one’s own self.
Mind our Mindsets.
Now let’s go forward together to move the world, to become the better place it can and should be for all of us.
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Flickr photo # 1 courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/acbo/2073367106/sizes/m/
Hamburgers and Software: What Could They Possibly Have in Common?
August 12th, 2009
Software and Hamburgers don’t seem to have much in common, but when you look at the history of fast food chains McDonald’s and Wendy’s it becomes easier to see parallels between the two and Cincom. Read the rest of this entry “