What I Learned This Year And Why Its Important

This past year has been a very busy year for me. I have been “on the road” for about 3 weeks out of every month, traveling all over the US and Canada, twice to Europe, twice to India and down to Mexico City. My main role on these business trips is to review projects and provide insights, connections, suggestions and guidance wherever possible for the managers that are running these projects. The project managers are as diverse as the projects themselves which vary widely from around $20 million to upwards of $350 million. This has made for a challenging year!

Besides striving to provide value on these projects, I also try to learn as much as possible wherever I go. One of the interesting observations I have made is that regardless of culture, business environment, language or time zone, everyone wants to be successful. However, only those that are willing to take responsibility for their success actually achieve it. What I mean by this is that the people that take responsibility for their success do not let anything stand in their way to achieving success. For example;

  • If successful people have a business system that is not working for their project, they build or buy a tool that is fit for purpose . . . those who just want to be successful will wait for someone else to provide a business system that works
  • If successful people need someone with a particular skillset on their project they actively go out and find this person and bring them on to the project . . . those who just want to be successful will fill out the resource request paperwork and hand it to HR and wait for the person to show up
  • If successful people need additional funding on their project they will take an active role to justify the funding requirements and work with the required parties to get it . . . those who just want to be successful will fill out a change request and submit it and then wait to hear back
  • If successful people run into a hurdle they will take an active role to get over it, around it or bulldoze through it . . . those who just want to be successful will raise the issue to their boss and wait for someone to resolve it

Now, in addition to this key “success” insight, I have captured many more insights in my blogs each week. My top five blog posts for 2014 are;

  1. What Is Your Company’s Vision and Why Should You Care?
  2. What Does Your Organization Value?
  3. Dealing With Change Using A Protean Corporation
  4. What Everybody Ought To Know About Certainty
  5. A Change Management Model That All Leaders Must Understand

 

I will leave you with this question: What is it that you need to take responsibility for in 2015 to make yourself and your business successful?

Wishing you a happy, successful and prosperous New Year!

Please note: I reserve the right to delete comments that are offensive or off-topic.

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