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Do You Run From Challenges or Do You Face Them Down?

There are people who shy away from challenges and then there are people who are energized by attacking challenges and “defeating” them!

There are pros and cons to both approaches. However, I am not aware of any great accomplishment or breakthrough ever happening because someone was running away from a challenge!

All major technology, medical, literary, artistic, or other societal impacting breakthrough has happened because someone identified a challenge, took it on, and solved it!

I was reminded of this by my grandson Jett. He is going through a phase where scaring him does not result in him running away. Rather, he turns towards the “threat” and runs directly at it. He is challenging the threat!

This does not mean that he is always successful in “defeating” the threat. In fact, most of the time he fails . . . but this does not deter him or keep him from trying again!

And, as business leaders, this is what we all should be doing!

Things You Can Count On By Taking on Challenges

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Are You an Effective Leader and Why You Should Care?

In today’s world of job automation, virtual workers, AI, machine learning, outsourcing, and “low-cost” off-shoring, one of the best ways to differentiate yourself and your businesses is to be an effective leader!

Most people know that business failure rates are quite high. Although there are probably as many reasons for business failure as there are business failures, one of the overarching reasons businesses fail is lack of proper leadership.

One does not have to look to hard to find some examples. Is it possible that Blockbuster, Sears, Bre-X Minerals, Sharper Image, Enron, and Polaroid would be in business today if they were being led by effective leaders?

So, what does effective leadership look like?

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Would You Rather Choose the Path of Preservation or Innovation?

Have you ever played the game “Would You Rather? It’s a game where you ask the question;  “Would you rather do X or Y?” It is usually a younger, more “silly” crowd that plays it . . . like my own kids when they were teenagers. They could entertain themselves for hours with outlandish “would you rather” scenarios!

I recently was at a conference where Andy Moore was speaking and he challenged the crowd with the statement; “we can take a path of preservation or a path of innovation.“ You cannot do both. You must choose one or the other.

This really made me think about business leaders and the seemingly innocuous decisions that we make every day that shapes our destiny and the destiny of our businesses and our employees.

Any business that chooses to take the path of preservation rather than the path of innovation will die. Preservation may seem like the safe path because it is the path of least resistance. It may be the path that is the least painful up front. However, it is the path to irrelevancy and decay.

Preservation = Death

What do you think about when you think of the word preservation? Treated lumber is preserved. Petrified wood is preserved. Fossils are preserved. Mammoths are preserved. Egyptian mummies are preserved. And all these preserved things are dead! The path of preservation inevitably ends in death.

There is no future in the status quo. There is no future in preservation!

Innovation = Hope!

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The Excellence Dividend

Meeting the Tech Tide with Work That Wows and Jobs That Last

This week’s book summary is The Excellence Dividend by Tom Peters.

Peters doesn’t disappoint with this “sequel” to his In Search of Excellence book that was considered groundbreaking. Where In Search of Excellence focused on the eight principles of management that created 43 of America’s best companies in the 1980’s, The Excellence Dividend focuses on the practice or discipline of excellence itself.

My takeaway from this book is Peters’ mindset that he summarizes with the statement; “Excellence is the next five minutes.” Basically, anyone can do average. We must differentiate ourselves by being excellent!

Peters says we can exude excellence by considering simple things like:

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What Powerful Advice Do You Wish You Had 20 Years Ago?

Recently, I was a guest on “Ideas and Stuff”, a Calgary based podcast (episode 50). One of the questions they provided in advance for me to think about and prepare for was; “If you could go back to the day you started your business/career, what would you tell yourself?”

As it turns out, we had a great conversation during the podcast and never quite got to this question! However, the question did really get me thinking.

If I could back up my career, what do I wish I knew that would make a big difference?

As many of you know, I am an electrical engineer by education and practiced in this field for quite a few years.

As engineers, we are forced to focus on numbers, formulas, Lagrangian multipliers, and other theorems that would give most people nightmares! However, as the Dilbert stereotype so aptly illustrates, we are generally not taught the basic things about effective communication, teamwork, or leadership!

So, what would I tell myself if I could go back to the day I started my career?