While duct tape may be the “survival tool” of choice for the guys from “Mythbusters” – unfortunately for most business leaders, duct tape won’t do it when it comes aligning your team and driving great Execution. Great execution certainly takes a lot of discipline but if you’ve got the right tool kit to leverage, it can be a lot less frustrating and significantly more rewarding.
There’s a Chinese proverb, “Failure is the Mother of Success”. Many of us work hard to achieve success, to “climb the mountain”, but in our efforts to get to where ever it is that we’re going, not only do we forget to look back and celebrate how far we’ve come - we also sometimes forget that the pinnacle can be the most dangerous part of the journey. For with great achievements can come hubris – the dark side of success. And Phil Jaurigue has experienced that first hand.
As 2014 approaches, I thought I’d share the following “forecast” about what the upcoming year could hold. Dear Small and Mid-Market Executive –
Several years ago, James Fischer, had an ambitious goal. The co-Founder of the Origin Institute, a research and consulting company out of Boulder, Colorado, wanted to understand and decipher the patterns, behaviors and the characteristics in entrepreneurial enterprises - and - develop best practices to better navigate the trials and tribulations of business growth. Six years and over 700 CEO interviews later, Jim documented his findings in the book, “Navigating the Growth Curve: 9 Fundamentals that Build a Profit-driven, People-centered, Growth-smart Company”.
Last week I spent five wonderful days touring the Douro Valley in Portugal with my husband, my sister and brother-in-law. The spa/ hotel where we stayed had terrific service and accommodations; we ate fabulous Portuguese food and took several day trips to the visit the local wineries that are ubiquitous in this part of the world. The views were breathtakingly gorgeous as we wandered around impossibly high mountains in a tiny little Volvo, attempting to navigate unfamiliar roads in a foreign country.
“You don’t look like a chemical engineer,”another (male) chemical engineer said to me, upon being introduced as his new colleague, as if I was some strange aberration of the “species”. (Twenty years later, I still get a laugh remembering his reaction.) “What’s an engineer supposed to look like?”, I asked him with a smile. It wasn’t the first time that I had heard that type of comment from a man upon introducing myself (certainly not the last) and why get angry when humor can often be the best response?
