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More on Success!
What is success anyway? For me it is about teamwork. Yes I’m serious. It’s not about money or fame; it’s about accomplishing worthwhile goals towards a personal mission that benefits humanity and life while working with others. This is new for me and it has come from realizing certain things about myself and about living life.
After all, who is life for, the animals, insects, what? No it is for human beings to enjoy the feeling and experience of being alive and to understand who we are and why we are alive.
So if we do things for anything else other than that, we are contributing to what? Probably to our own false ideas about what is going to make us happy, like a new shiny this or that. It means we are focusing on ourselves and our own needs rather than the needs of others. Of course I don’t mean we should ignore our own needs to serve others because that doesn’t work either.
Here are two examples to illustrate what I mean and why taking my approach will not only transform your own way of being, but it will also change the world as we know it.
Yesterday a good friend who works in the public health care system was telling me about a committee meeting to work on an important project regarding the care of terminally ill patients. She found herself at complete odds with some of the staff members who she felt were inflexible in their thinking and could only see things from the perspective of following policies and procedures. She told me that this so demotivated her that she doesn’t want to work with people anymore. I was shocked to hear this because she is such a kind, caring and intelligent person.
The other day I had a phone conversation with someone I collaborate with on a project as volunteers. I had started action on a project and she felt that I was acting to quickly and wanted to wait for a meeting to happen so a plan could be put in place. My immediate response was to tell her bluntly that this was not necessary and we needed to move forward. But I bit my tongue and instead thought of what caused her to say this. I realized instantly that it is because of the type of person she is. In the approach to knowing myself and others called types of people (http://threebrainsynergy.com), her type is called the Planner type. Planners are careful decision makers because their inborn tendency is to work with a plan and strategy and they have a talent for research, planning, and logistics.
My response instead was to listen, acknowledge her response as being understandable and valid before then offering to clarify my perspective. In the end we agreed to continue with my proposed action but called a meeting for next week to create a longer term plan with more details.
I also understood that my own type, the Idealist wants action and goal accomplishment and when this does not happen I can get pushy and agressive. So right there was two opportunities, one for conflict and the other collaboration. It would have been much more difficult to choose the collaborative approach had I not understood how and why we are different. In the past, I would have thought her way of thinking and seeing things was wrong and would have tried to convince her to see things my way. This would have just escalated the possibility of a conflict or would have forced her to agree on the spot and then perhaps harbor some resentment towards me.
The point I am trying to make is that through by my understanding the types of people approach and the importance of collaboration and seeking to understand the others person’s perspective, I have found a way to combine teamwork with the determination of my goals and mission. This is a huge step for me and it made me think that if everyone could learn what I have and make an committed effort to apply it, we could transform ourselves and our organizations and beyond. The difference is to put the goal and the way to reach the goal through mutual understanding first with no compromise to this value.
Thus it is important that leaders learn and embrace personal success from the perspective of collaborating with others towards goals that contribute to a more enjoyable experience of life for people. And that does not mean having more money to buy the latest gadget or a bigger home and fancier car.
Does this make sense to you? Please post your comments and visit ThreeBrainSynergy to check out the demo lesson to understand yourself and others. It all begins there.
Chinese Innovation
This morning I was watching the opening ceremonies of the Olympic games in Beijing and they were showing early Chinese innovations like paper, printing and the compass. I didn’t know these things originated in China. The artists were putting on a beautiful and spectacular demonstration that was artistic and highly technical and disciplined.
Yesterday I met a business owner near my office to talk about developing a high performance organization and to see if we could work together to improve his business, I had met Tim a few months ago when I was acting as a judge for the local Chamber of Commerce Accolades award for the most innovative company in the region. I remembered the visit I had made with the two other judges and how I was impressed with the small innovative and flexible firm he had built. They had managed to take standard everyday products and develop them into new designs and functions that addressed specific needs in niche markets.
I had bought along an article http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=3009ca9f-f412-4050-b64e-6a3e91049ffb that talked about how important innovation is to competing globally and gave an example of a firm in Ontario that was leading in their field because of their innovative approach to their product and market, as well as they way they functioned.
We talked about China and the challenge that manufacturers face because of the easier access to products from there and China’s great ability to manufacture at a much lower cost. He told me of his experience with trying to outsource some manufacturing to China and how it failed. He said that they are good for producing high volume low quality products. I felt differently because although I see that many low priced products produced there are generally lower quality, I have seen great improvements in the quality of many products from China over the years. Tim pointed out that larger firms are able to handle their own quality control in China or build factories in partnership with local owner/operators.
Learning this morning about China’s past and it’s remarkable innovations clashed in my mind with the observation made by Tim. We has also talked about what it takes to build a high performance autonomous workforce and the key point we agreed on was that it takes a continuous improvement attitude from all people in the organization to not only drive innovative thinking but to empower people to do so. This is scary for many small and medium size business owners because it means giving up power and control to a great degree to your people. At the same time not doing so hinders the potential growth of the organization as well stunts creative thinking and thus makes the organizationless inflexible and less able to compete.
In my mind, this is what happened in China. The great discoveries and innovations were made long before the restrictiveness of communistic rule began to act on the psyche of the Chinese population. Since then China has become a land of control and imitation. They seems to be great at replicating what others are creating and doing it fast and less costly.
For North American manufacturers to survive and grow, they must foster innovation and continuous improvement throughout the organization and the attitude for this begins with the president and his executive team. They must be willing to embrace a management style that promotes creativity and open sharing of ideas. They must also realize the importance and value in generating strong team spirit throughout the departments. To do this requires the top leaders to examine and improve their own leadership and teamwork behaviours and insists that those they manage do the same. This will then drift down throughout the organization and when reinforced will become the behaviour to emulate and thus mold the culture of the enterprise.