Be Different or be dead

July 8, 2019

6 reasons why being broken is better than being beautiful

Source: Unsplash

6 reasons why being broken is better than being beautiful.

The stereotype of success these days is based on the notion of perfection; a flawlessness that people believe is somehow responsible for yielding consistent brilliant results.

Successful business strategies are described as ones that get it right the first time. They have amazing insight at the outset to predict with uncanny accuracy what people will desire in products and services.
And their creativity unleashes the imagination of the crowd who flock in ridiculously long line ups to buy the latest and the greatest.

Successful people are portrayed in elegant attire, sporting a body image devoid of any unsightly signs of the ordinary.
Their body image exudes the winner attitude and destiny.

Does anybody buy this? Does anyone really believe that incredible business performance is a function of getting it right the first time, or that physical perfection is the necessary precondition to personal success?

There are no silver bullets to success in my experience. Rather, success is normally achieved (notwithstanding the odd blistering single magic act that rarely happens) by a series of actions taken in relentless painstaking fashion aided by unmatched sweat, passion and emotion — by being broken in one way or another.

Here are 6 reasons why being broken will get you where you want to go and why being beautiful, while a fashionable notion, is a non-starter for capturing the prize.

1. If you’re broken you’re prepared when you fail

You know your first attempt at anything rarely succeeds and that the future “never unfolds as it should” (i.e. the way you hoped it would).

Broken prepares you for the journey of change that every new idea is destined to endure. Broken implies imperfection at the outset, and this is the reality of virtually 99.99% of the solutions we create to the challenges we face.

There are very few immaculately conceived plans and strategies that produce the exact results expected; every plan is flawed in some way with degrees of imperfection that are realized only when the real world does not conform to the assumptions made about it — actual product sales, for example, rarely mirror their original forecast.

So if you enter the race to win knowing full well that your plan is flawed in some way (which you will discover only after you are in the middle of full-on execution), you will be well positioned to spot irregularities and take corrective action.

People who assume their plan will work are not prepared to shift when it doesn’t; their feet are stuck in mud, unable to recover from unexpected body blows.

2. If you’re broken you know action speaks louder than words

Broken demands action. Broken can’t be productive by pontificating or exercising the intellect; by merely thinking about what has to be done to create a higher level of performance and better results — the brain can’t DO anything.

The only way better outcomes are produced is by taking decisive action in the face of uncertainty; without knowing if what you do will produce the result you want.

Broken promotes the strategy of trying; making as many attempts as you can to accommodate the impact of real world events on your plan, because if you don’t try, little happens in terms of returning to winning ways. You get stuck believing that eventually your original plan will see that light of day.

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.” — Albert Einstein

Broken demands that you act first and think second and that you TRY incessantly.

3. If you’re broken you know you have to work harder than others

Broken requires hard, excruciating and often painful work. Broken can’t be fixed by slight-of-hand or by finesse; the appropriate solution often cannot be found neatly or elegantly.

Successful broken strategies are not produced by sophisticated algorithms that cleverly manipulate the independent variables at play, rather they are created by hard work put in by individuals who are unafraid to get dirty.

4. If you’re broken you know that you’ve got to constantly keep moving

Broken requires competence in juggling. Broken solutions are rarely singular; they’re not produced by a single cause. For example, an underperforming product rarely happens because of one breakdown in the go-to-market chain. It’s not just a price, customer communications, supply or value proposition issue but is most likely a mixture of all of them to varying degrees.

Fixing broken, therefore requires a balancing touch to skillfully mix a bit of this with a bit of that — revise the value proposition to communicate uniqueness among the competition, adjust the price accordingly and modify customer communication tactics.

Broken generally requires synthesis and integration; a TWEAK mentality that applies many potential solutions simultaneously rather than rely on the traditional sequential approach of try this >> study the results >> try something else.

5. If you’re broken you know that you will make mistakes and you must learn how to turn them to your advantage

Broken creates insane loyalty.

The popular notion is that getting things right the first time is the ultimate goal; avoiding mistakes and errors is the way to achieve high levels of performance. In business avoiding mistakes eliminates the need for rework which in turn mitigates against margin dilution. In one’s career, when you don’t make mistakes your veneer as an unblemished professional is maintained.

Well, I’m afraid to say that mistakes are here to stay — humans and technology don’t always perform the way we expect — so we need to find a way to leverage them for success.

Being broken forces us to do just that. It prepares us for the fact that events will not always go the way we intended, and it drives us to salvage something from the screw-up that will place is in a better position than if the mistake never happened.

Being broken makes us recovery experts. It teaches us that there IS a way to turn a soured event into an amazingly successful experience. It teaches about the power of surprise and the unexpected.

6. If you’re broken you know you must depend on relationships with others

Broken results in a deep respect for relationships because if you don’t have a circle of trusted friends you’re disadvantaged. Broken people understand they can’t achieve anything substantial as an “only child” but rather through the collective efforts of their tribe.

Broken is real; beauty is superficial. Real delivers results; beauty is a distraction.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 7.8.19 at 03:13 am by Roy Osing
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July 1, 2019

Why success demands that you are out-of-step with others

Source: Unsplash

Why success demands that you are out of step with others.

How many degrees do we need? What academic credentials should we gather, and from which institution?

What courses should we take to attract potential employers?

Who should we hang out with to take advantage of their network?

Why are there so many people with amazing degrees doing jobs that are way below their qualifications — taxi drivers with PhD’s?

How can I climb the ladder when there are so many other people who want the same thing?

How can I get noticed in my company and show what I am capable of?

I want to take on more responsibility and prove that I am worthy of a promotion: how do I get it done?

So many questions behind the challenge to be successful, and so many opinions on how to achieve success — and here’s mine.

I have seen many people with incredible academic backgrounds fail to reach their potential.

I have seen many highly skilled professionals fail to move up in an organization and achieve their career goals.

I have seen experienced managers and leaders not rewarded for their contributions.

Is Google your best friend?

And, in my view, the common denominator in all of these circumstances is the fact that most people generally tend to practise rote; they follow the established doctrine of their trade.

When approaching a challenge, they employ the toolset that everyone else uses. When facing a “How should I do it?” question, they go to Google for the most commonly used approach.

And they hunt for a best practice; a method that has worked for others that they hope will work in their particular circumstances. And they try to copy it.

Copying what others do has no long term redeeming value and being in-step with the crowd is a formula to define YOU as a common version of everyone in it — welcome to your role as a member of a common denominator.

Join the out-of-step crowd

In my experience, I have seen success follow out-of-step people; those who reject crowd thinking and find best practices repugnant.

People who consider a Goggle approach as a solution to morph to be a better fit for their particular situation.

People who are constantly asking themselves “How can I do this different than everyone else?”

People who look for weird, off-the-wall methods and outcomes as an expression of their individuality.

Out-of-step people make the world an interesting place to be. And they are rewarded by receiving the recognition and reward they deserve.

Think DiFFERENT

My message to you: everyday when you get out of bed, decide that you will do something — some little thing — that is different than the in-step crowd.

If you make ‘different thinking’ part of your daily routine eventually it will become part of your persona and will begin to govern the outcomes you deliver.

And success will follow. I guarantee it…

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 7.1.19 at 04:12 am by Roy Osing
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June 24, 2019

5 simple steps I took to have a rewarding and successful career

Source: Pexels

5 simple steps I took to have a rewarding and successful career.

I have had a long career.

Over 50 years in many roles — from analyst to entrepreneur to president to consultant to author — and in many different types of organizations — from a regulated monopoly to an intensely competitive data and internet company to a small business on my own.

And I am frequently asked what were the key things I learned about success.
The question asked is: if I could distill the hours, days, months and years I put in “at the office” down to THE few specific learnings that had the greatest impact on my success, what would they be?

It’s a tough question to answer because there are so many variables at play that determine what works and what doesn’t: the leader that one serves, the economic environment that one operates within, the demographics of the employee population and the rate of technological change all work together to influence the performance of a team of professionals.

That said, I believe that these 5 principles that I learned and applied throughout my various careers had, in comparison to many others, the greatest impact on my overall performance and were my critical success factors.

1. Competence is serving others

There are two types of people in life: those who like to control those around them and those that love to serve others.
One stems from the historical command-and-control model; the other from a belief that if you enable someone to do their job as they know how, their — and the organization’s — performance will soar.

It’s the servers who are the most successful because they understand that when you are in the serving mode, others respond enthusiastically to what they are saying and to what they want to do.

Servers connect emotionally with humans and create a bias to action that results in amazing outcomes. Servers lose their ego because it gets in the way of getting things done.

Success isn’t about what YOU know, it’s about how well you mobilize what OTHERS know.

2. Execute first; plan second

Ideas represent 20% of what gets done. It’s not the idea or the plan that has value, it’s the execution.
So-so ideas that are miraculously implemented with tenacity and passion become revolutionary and are game changers; “great” ideas without hell-bent implementation become road kill and never see the light of day.

Most people don’t get this. They’ve been taught that the development of the plan should be the priority focus; that rigour must be applied to “get it right”.
The problem is, the plan is never right because that would imply that all variables affecting the plan have successfully been accounted for. And in a world of unpredictability that is impossible.

One of my key learnings was to get the plan “just about right” and apply maximum energy to executing it,  and tweaking it based on what works and doesn’t work along the way.

While others spend their time trying to perfect their plan — the impossible dream — you are creating something that actually works based on the realities of the marketplace.

3. Success demands giving up

Success isn’t just about what you do that’s new, it’s also about what you give up that’s no longer relevant or productive — it’s not about what you take on, but rather what you are prepared to give up.

It would be great if we had an unlimited amount of time to pursue all of the possibilities that face us. But we don’t, so it is extremely important that we tackle the truly critical tasks that will pay off handsomely and that we eliminate the baggage from yesterday.

I constantly observe people toiling away on projects that don’t contribute to their goal, but they are happy to continue them because it’s their comfy zone.
I suggest you constantly question the relevance of what you are doing; be “in your face” on whether the project adds value to your end objective or not.

And be ruthless in expunging this resource wasters — #CRAP — and replace them with task that positively contribute to the end result you expect.

4. Change needs emotion

The prerequisite to this is that your brand needs to carry a strong change agent dimension; people need to see you as someone who wants to make changes that are consistent with the dynamics occurring in the environment around you.

You don’t want to be seen as a hanger-on who is reticent to accepting the inherent risks of doing things differently.

That said, to be an effective change agent requires that you excite the emotion in people; waking up the logic isn’t good enough.
I can’t tell you how many times a good theoretical solution died on the vine because no one was excited by the prospects it posed.

Change doesn’t come easy and it is definitely NOT as a result of intellectual energy. Change happens when people’s emotions are stirred by the new vision.
The lesson for change agents is to appeal to people’s right brain when change is the agenda. Pump ‘em up with the possibilities.

5. Mistakes are vital

Avoiding making a mistake is not as important as what you do after you’ve made it.
Mistakes will always be made; people and technology are not perfect. But if you do an amazing job at recovering, people will forget the actual mistake you made and remember only what you did to rectify it.

A colossal screw up with little or no follow up action to recover stays a colossal screw up whereas one that has a brilliant recovery that leaves you breathless makes it a colossal success.

How do you turn an OOPS! into a WTF?
The formula for an unforgettable recovery is: fix the OOPS! fast (it must be within 24 hours or don’t waste your time) and surprise people with what they don’t expect.

The surprise factor is the secret ingredient to a mind-blowing recovery because everyone expects the mistake to be fixed but they don’t expect to be taken on a magic carpet ride during the process.

They will remember the magic; the mistake disappears from consciousness.

5 rather simple things that punch above their weight in terms of deciding between average and unmatched performance and career success.

They made a huge difference for me and they will for you.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 6.24.19 at 04:59 am by Roy Osing
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June 10, 2019

When your leadership results go unnoticed what’s the right move?

When your leadership results go unnoticed what’s the right move?

When you always find yourself in a no-win situation where you do whatever the organization expects of you and yet you come up empty in terms of recognition and reward for your efforts.

There are times when you can’t win for losing.

I received an email recently from Bill, who experienced this dilemma. Here is his story…

“For years I was in charge of a (declining legacy) unit within my large organization. I was a good day-to-day manager but wanted to lead change and turn things around - to be a leader, not just a manager; to be transformative, not transactional.

I had a lot of ideas for turning around demand, collaborating with other units, and expanding our product line, and did as much as I could within the unit. But serious change required new resources and/or support at higher levels.

So I spent long hours thinking and brainstorming with my team, crunching numbers, practicing presentations, and building relationships across the organization to make evidence-based cases for change that aligned with our organization’s strategic goals.

When your ideas are ignored

But most were turned down, and I never did reverse the decline. And I now realize that I probably never had a chance. It suited the organization to keep our legacy unit the way it was, producing declining but still considerable value without needing to make any new investment or disrupting other more high-performing units.

But no one told me this. Instead, I was openly encouraged to keep pitching new ideas, even when I expressed concerns that I didn’t seem to be getting anywhere.

Feedback was always affirmative, just ‘not right now’ and ‘try again.’ So I kept going further on the same path, feeling change was always just around the corner. But I was throwing good money after bad.

After six years I finally got out with a lateral move elsewhere in our organization. Looking back I now see the real problems.

My direct manager for the entire time was overburdened and a poor communicator and coach. He actually tried to treat everyone as fairly as possible, but that meant saying the same thing to every unit leader, not disrupting the existing structure, and following a single resourcing model regardless of context.

Second, previous leadership at the top was more dysfunctional than I knew. The strategic plan was followed inconsistently and was useless guidance for someone at my level.

When you realize you’ve wasted precious time

But I wasted a lot of years and effort there, setting back my entire career. I wish I had been able to see things a lot earlier.

How can someone recognize they are in a no-win leadership situation? Especially when they receive mixed or misleading signals from the organization and their superiors?

Throughout my time I became increasingly obsessed with the distinction between managing and leading that is found in so much of the leadership literature. I always thought that “if I am a real leader, I will turn this around.”

I probably ended up downplaying my actual management skills - I ran a good, productive shop with high morale despite our gloomy long-term prospects. In retrospect, I would have invested even more in fixing day-to-day stuff rather than trying to come up with shiny new things.”

Sound familiar? Although the signs are in front of us, we keep believing that our efforts sooner or later will be recognized and that we will be rewarded for them.

Well guess what? Some people will suck the life out of you and give you nothing in return. They don’t care about you and want only to use you to further their own personal gains.

Be alert to the information in front of you

That said, how do you spot the tipping point: the point where you actually have enough information in front of you to make a call?

Bill actually had all the information he needed:
— his new ideas were consistently turned down;
— he spent a number of years trying to play a transformational role, but was unsuccessful;
— his leadership skills were not valued;
— he wasn’t recognized for his uniqueness; he was viewed as a common tribe member;
— the organization was dysfunctional in terms of executing their strategic plan;
— his superiors gave mixed signals on what was valued and expected by the organization.

The information to make an informed decision was there, but Bill didn’t act. He hoped that if he stuck to his game plan of innovation and providing leadership his worth would eventually be rewarded.

If you are disappointed once, shame on them but if you keep coming back for more, and are repeatedly turned down, shame on you.

So my advice: look at and listen to the evidence in your face and ACT! Things don’t get better by hoping that things will change.

Choose change and avoid being stuck

Improvements in your career and your life only happen when you decide to take a new course and find out if you chose well. If you don’t choose change,  you’ll be stuck as Bill was.

Your choice may not pan out but at least you will have more experience and information to make another choice, and another until you reach the right fit for you.

Never expect and trust others to do the right thing for you. They might, but you have no certainty that they will. If you want the right outcome, YOU you have to take responsibility and do it yourself

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 6.10.19 at 04:28 am by Roy Osing
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