Be Different or be dead

June 24, 2019

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

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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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