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;

What Everybody Ought to Know About Certainty And How It Can Hurt You

Certainty is one of the weakest positions in life. Curiosity is one of the most powerful. Certainty prohibits learning and curiosity fuels change.Dr. Henry Cloud 

This quote is extremely powerful and should trigger some deep reflection in each of us.

How many times have we walked into a situation like a meeting, negotiation, conversation or argument with absolute certainty in our position? I know I am guilty of this way too often. How many of these situations resulted in unnecessary conflict or a solution that was not optimal?

What if you had entered these situations with an open mind, willing to understand other viewpoints and learn about the positions that others have on the topic? What if you were truly curious and open to solving the situation in the most productive way possible instead of simply bulldozing through to your solution?