Steve Job’s biography once again confirms to me that very successful people have ‘sharp edges’ and are not ’rounded’. He focussed his efforts on a few areas where he had enough talent to excel. He developed them and did not appear to pay much attention to his weaknesses.
Start with your values and end with achievement! Steve Jobs, the late Apple co-founder among others maintain that passion is a crucial ingredient to entrepreneurial success. So what role does passion play? Most achievement requires focus and energy but it is difficult to sustain them without passion. Passion is however not enough when it is at odds with other matters that are really important to you. For instance, you are passionate about robotics and want to spend all your waking hours working on inventions but your family is also very important to you …
So it is crucial to set up your goals, projects, job properly to ensure you have the fuel to stay the course. The greatest effort goes in at the start. After a good set-up, it take much less effort to maintain, just a quiet moment or two before you start off.
Knowing what is important to you as a person, what must be present for you to feel fulfilled, is important to effective performance. These are often not the values we would describe to ourselves and others, but those that are consistently evident in our day-to-day actions. For example, if fairness is really important to me, there will be evidence of fairness in my daily actions. When I have been fair, I will feel fulfilled, even if I have suffered an inconvenience or loss in the process.
A vivid vision of what achievement will look, feel, smell is also crucial to achievement. Such a description of the end goal proposes that one clearly focuses on the future and enables all parts of the person to move in synch towards one destination.
When the person anticipates that this vision will be achieved by behaving in line with values, a considerable amount of energy is released from within, energy which can sustain the journey towards the goal, project or task. I, personally have found that with alignment of vision and values, this journey usually feels easier than without such alignment. Success is more certain.
Fighting has negative connotations but it is really about survival. On the streets, serious fights end quickly, in seconds. Trained fighters and martial artists say that to fight well, you must concern yourself with what is in your control and be in the present. In the present, you can take opportunities as they come and defensive action as you need to. Yes, a high level aggression is also needed.
They will tell you that in a fight, once you start worrying about what your opponent will do, you get hurt. Your focus shifts to anticipation and you begin to be led by the opponent, fighting your opponent’s fight. Your focus must therefore be on what you are doing with your strengths and abilities, in the moment. Fight your fight and let the opponent worry about theirs.
As Steven Covey would say, be in your circle of control. Do not dwell in your circle of concern, where you have neither control nor influence. This has application to daily life, individual achievement and competition between organisations.
When a rugby ball is lobbed or a football is kicked in a pass, the player does not aim for the current position of the team mate but for their future position, where they would be when the ball gets to them. Early men who were no good at this forward thinking must have been rubbish hunters and farmers.
Many of us drivers respond to the driver directly in front of us. We slow down or stop when we see the brake lights in front of us light up. Advanced driving shows how much easier it is though when our primary attention is on the 2 or 3 cars in front of us. We often slow down or stop at the same time as the car directly in front of us. Our awareness of our surroundings is improved and we are more flexible in our responses, making it easier to flow with the environment. This for me is what strategic thinking is about. Seeing around the corner. What if? What would I do? What is the best that could happen? What is the worst? Am I prepared for both? For some it is natural but some others have to learn it or adopt simple systems to effect it. The result is increased success in being proactive and in responding to circumstances around us.
We in the UK and elsewhere continue to be reminded of the sense of this wise saying. First it was when we enjoyed cheaper and abundant credit for which we are now paying with stiflled credit lines and low savings rates. The News of the World scandal is another brutal reminder that when we enjoy the inside stories and gossip about other lives, the private information is being obtained at a price. Many would argue, too high a price.
But like the banking crisis, where it was easier to blame the bankers and not our appetite for consumption, we could blame the News of the World and not our desire to consume news about private lives. For a while we could despise “the paparazzi”, until the next big story entices us to buy the papers or we could reflect more deeply and take responsibility for encouraging the prying into private lives. Which one will it be? Any bets?
I do not for one second, excuse the greed that underlay the behaviours exhibited by the bankers or the journalists in both instances. I am just saying that there is evidence of similar greed elsewhere in society and all they are doing is serve us what we demand.