Notes from Kevin Liebl

The Importance of Staying Balanced

When I was in high school, there was a popular song by Jackson Browne called “The Pretender.” In it, he spoke of being “caught between the longing for love, and the struggle for the legal tender.” This week, while traveling on business, I was reminded of the song as I spoke to a middle-aged woman sitting next to me on a flight between Dallas and Austin. She explained that she was in pharmaceutical sales. She was very successful, but as she put it, “had sold her soul” over the past 20-years of her career. She was now between jobs and trying to “heal herself” since she was financially secure, but emotionally bankrupt.

Most of us struggle with this issue of balance in our life at some point. It may be work vs. family. It may be family vs. personal hobbies. It may be personal hobbies vs. spirituality. It could be any activity in our lives. The result may manifest itself in obvious ways such as an addiction (e.g., alcohol, drugs, work, exercise), or in more subtle ways such as suffering relationships or excessive stress. In most cases, it is simply a question of priorities. Is it worth missing my son’s basketball tournament to be present at my company’s sales conference?
Are the physical and mental benefits of my exercise regimen worth giving up time I could be spending at the office or with my family? The answer is different for everyone.

We all strive to be the best spouse, parent, child, neighbor, provider, student, athlete, and so forth that we can be. However, the truth is that we can’t excel at everything. Something always suffers. There have been times when I put too much emphasis on certain aspects of my life and let those activities control me. As a result, other interests suffered. There have been times when my social life took precedence. There have been times when athletics – in my case cycling – has dominated. For years, my career was all consuming. In each case, I was lucky enough to recognize that I was out of balance and forced myself to re-center. My wife continues to remind me that the right answer is, “everything in moderation”.

We first learned this lesson when we were children. We quickly learned that too much ice cream or candy would lead to a stomach ache. We learned that too much television would give us a headache. Throughout our lives we are reminded that too much of anything is a bad idea. However, we live in a society that glorifies excess. The benchmark for what we consider “success” is often unachievable for most people. This causes many of us to stay on a treadmill and not only feel like a failure in our area of focus, but clearly feel like a failure in the areas that we have chosen to sacrifice and ignore.

It is interesting that while we all understand the issue and know the answer, we chose to ignore the solution. Most of us recognize we would be much happier having a healthy balance in our lives of work, family, education, spirituality, exercise, and so on. I would rather be good in all areas, then great in one and poor in all the others. The best answer is – almost always – a healthy balance.

I will close with a story attributed to the Dalai Lama that summarizes the point very well…

A question was posed to the Dalai Lama – “what one thing about human nature surprises you the most?” His answer – “Man”
”Because he sacrifices his health, in order to make money.
Then he sacrifices his money, to recuperate his health.
And then he is so anxious about the future, that he doesn’t enjoy the present.
And as a result, he doesn’t live in the present or the future.
And he lives as if he’s never going to die, and then he dies having never really lived.”

Find your balance and enjoy the ride – all of it, not just one part of it.
The Value of A Simple Red Light
Most companies are continually managing the lifecycles of their key products. Marketing teams are researching industry trends, looking for new opportunities. Engineering departments are developing new products to satisfy market requirements. Product teams are sustaining existing products by introducing incremental enhancements. Finally, older products are being removed from the market to make room for newer models. The cycle never ends.

Unfortunately, this ongoing cycle often becomes unmanageable. Watching companies manage their product life cycles is often like watching a dog chase it’s tail. More and more products are pushed into the development pipeline to where the engineers can never deliver on time. The cycle times are compressed and a proper product launch program never seems possible. Products are removed from the market before they reach maturity and are fully accepted by the consumer. The result is that companies deliver products that are of marginal success.

Companies often talk about “product velocity”, or the ability to introduce products on a steady cadence – and most importantly – faster than their competition. I would argue that most customers don’t care about product velocity. They are more interested in getting product value and solutions that solve their problems.
As an example, most of us have smoke detectors in our houses. We have a total of eight in our house. Every time a battery needs to be replaced the unit creates a beep to indicate that the battery is low. One would think that this simple chirping would help isolate the unit in question. However, most of you know exactly what I am talking about. I have honestly had my entire family stand in different locations of the house in complete silence waiting for the alarm to chirp, trying to identify which unit needs a battery. It is one of the more frustrating challenges in life.

I would like to meet the marketing/engineering team that designed the chirping mechanism. I would ask a few questions:

Why don’t the alarms chirp on a regular interval? I’ve stood for 10 minutes waiting for an alarm to chirp. I leave the room and then it chips multiple times within a 2-minute period. Other times the chirping has stopped for hours. The interval seems to be entirely random.

Wouldn’t it have been logical to have the chirping continue for more than 3 milliseconds so that the consumer had time to find the failing unit? A 5-second chirp would have been very useful.

How were you able to design a chirping noise that has no sense of directionality? Almost every other noise known to man can be identified by location.
How were you able to design a unit that would run out of battery power at 2:00am – every single time? Wouldn’t the laws of random behavior allow it to begin chirping mid-day – just once?

Putting an expiration on the unit was probably a smart move. I am sure that this improves the life-saving capability of the product (as well as helps you sell more units). However, making the 8-10 year automatic expiration chirp the same tone as the battery-low indicator was just cruel. After replacing the battery in every unit in my house, I finally found an article on the Internet telling me that if the unit continues to chirp after inserting a new battery, then your unit may have reached it’s expiration date and need to be replaced entirely. Couldn’t you have used a different sound to indicate this?

Most importantly – Is it too much to ask for the unit to have a red light indicating that the battery is low?

Using very rough calculations, I figure that most families have five or more smoke detectors per home. Lets assume that one of these units needs a new battery every year. I would estimate that I waste about 30 minutes each time I replace a battery trying to figure out which smoke detector is chirping. The U.S. Government Census estimates that there are 114,825,428 households in the U.S. alone. A simple red light would save 57,412,714 hours of time. If we calculate the value of time using minimum wage ($8.00/hour in California), then adding a red light would save U.S. households a total of $459,301,712. Maybe you don’t agree with my math, but you get the point.

Most company’s product strategies focus on outflanking the competition and forget to listen to the customer. Sometimes all the customer really wants is a simple red light indicating that a battery needs to be replaced. One day a young marketing trainee will make this suggestion and put all the other smoke detector companies out of business. We will tell our grandchildren stories about how we used to run around the house cussing at the smoke detectors trying to find the one that is beeping. And they will respond with, “That’s silly! Didn’t smoke detectors always have a red-light?”

Success – The Value of Relevance and Longevity

I have been lucky enough to know, and work with, a lot of “successful” business people in my career. I was able to meet and work with the founders of Network Appliance (NetApp) when they were just a small startup in San Jose, CA. I worked for a company who had Ray Noorda (the founder of Novell) as the chairman of the board and was able to interface with him many times. I worked with many dot-com startups who made millions “overnight”. I also worked with many other successful business people who never had home runs, but were able to string together a series of singles, doubles and triples and do just as well as the dot-com overnight successes.
I’ve tried to learn something from everyone I worked with. The obvious question is what makes someone successful? The truth is that it is often simply being in the “right place at the right time”. However, I firmly believe that luck is simply preparation and opportunity coming together at the right time. If you aren’t prepared and you don’t create opportunities, then “luck” or “being in the right place at the right time” never happens.

However, the more interesting topic for me, is how best to define a “successful” career. The people I have come to admire the most, are not the “overnight successes”. Certainly, I have known some very successful individuals who have built valuable startups, sold them, and essentially retired before they were 40 (or in some cases before they were 30). While impressive, many of these individuals spent the next decade or so miserable because they couldn’t repeat the same success. I know a few who felt that they could easily repeat the earlier accomplishments. They put their fortunes back into startups – or other investments – and lost millions of dollars very quickly. Others simply bounced from project to project and slowly spent their fortunes.

My point is that a single home run in one’s career, is not nearly as impressive as a sustained record of ongoing singles and doubles. Everyone’s career will have peaks and valleys. The ability to fail, pick one’s self back up and have another success is what makes you successful. It takes intestinal fortitude. A career is not a sprint. It is a marathon. As every endurance-athlete knows, you have tremendous peaks and valleys during your event. There are times you want to quit, and times you believe you may set a record. The key is to keep going.

The business people that I am most impressed with are the ones who remain relevant over the long term. They are the ones who have longevity. I have a business colleague who I am proud to call a friend. We will call him “Al”. I met him in the mid-90’s. He was a consultant to a company I was working for. Everyone in the company respected him and recognized we were lucky to have him working with us. Most people expected him to be retiring at any time, but we hoped that he would continue to work with us. I spoke to him recently and he told me that he was finally retiring – not because he wasn’t in demand, but because he had other personal projects that he wanted to focus on. He is now well into his 80’s. I have tremendous admiration for people who can continue to add value and be relevant late into their career. This most difficult today when business processes are changing so quickly.
In closing, I can’t think of a better example to illustrate my point of longevity and relevance than Johnny Cash. It is well documented that Johnny Cash’s career was filled with tremendous successes and failures. He struggled with self-doubt. He struggled with legal issues. He struggled with relationships. He struggled with drugs and alcohol. However, he continued to pick up the pieces and work. He continued to find a way to be relevant.

At 71 years of age, Johnny Cash did a remake of the Trent Reznor (of the band Nine Inch Nails) song, “Hurt”. Cash found a way of using his musical genius to make the song his own. His video is both gripping and haunting as he looks back on his own career. Both the song and the video were a tremendous success for him, receiving both critical and public praise. Johnny Cash died 7 months later. In his last days, he proved that he was still relevant, not only to his existing fans, but to a whole new generation. He also set an incredible standard for career longevity.
Did you hear that?

No, you probably didn’t. Unfortunately, most of us don’t. It is because we aren’t listening. The noise I am referring to is the chatter of your customers. Most executives, marketeers and sales people are too busy “running to the business” to listen to their customers. It sounds a little silly doesn’t it? However, admit it. It is true.

Don’t get me wrong. We all try. We all go to trade shows and listen to the occasional customer who is willing to share their thoughts. We listen to customers during sales calls – but in reality, we are simply trying to close the next deal. We listen to customers during customer support episodes – but if we were honest, we are really focusing on damage control.

No, I am talking about really “listening” to customers. Listening to their conversations. The chatter is happening all the time. Much of it is on the web. The real power-users of your products and services are in chat-rooms, communities, blogs, LinkedIn, Twitter, and so forth. They are having conversations – good and bad about your products. They are sharing tips, solutions, favorite features, and yes, horror stories. These communities of users are marketing your products for you through their conversations. They are promoting your products in some cases, and trashing your products in others. They are defining your brand in a far more powerful way than you are with your well thought out brand strategy.

By listening to your customers, you can leverage your customer’s efforts. You can respond to problems and amplify the positive messages. You can learn from their ideas about new features. You can empower the vocal users to be ambassadors of your brand. You can create a dynamic feedback loop that is constantly providing input to your sales and marketing efforts, rather than a one-time study that is costly and occurs twice a year – at best. You can test market product ideas and strategies with your customers in real-time. And most importantly, you can embrace your most important asset – your customers.

Are you listening? What are they saying?

Simple Rules To Being a “Leader”

Leadership is a topic that most people have a difficult time explaining. Those who are good at it, can’t explain why. Those who are poor at it, believe they are doing all the right things. I would like to share three simple rules that seem to be consistent among both good and bad leaders.

I believe the biggest challenge leaders face, is determining their role in the organization. The best leaders seem to be able to recognize that the company’s success is not dependent on them, but on the entire organization. The company is a living and breathing entity, and their job is to “enable” the company, rather than to “drive” the company.

Rule 1: Establish and clearly communicate both short- and long-term goals. Strong leaders are able to set a path and make sure everyone in the company from the executive leadership team to the front desk receptionist knows where they are going, what needs to take place, and what the rewards will be. They make sure everyone feels a part of the company’s success. Many people believe that stock options should be limited to executives and middle management. I believe everyone in the company should be issued stock options, so that they feel a part of the team and are empowered to drive the company goals.

Rule 2: Remove Obstacles – Early in my career during an annual review, my boss told me that his job was to remove obstacles so that I could be successful. This impressed me. He understood that if his team was successful, he would be successful. Too many managers are focused on their own success, rather than the department or company success. They need to be secure enough to understand that they will be successful if their team is successful.

Rule 3: Establish Trust and Open Communication – More leaders fail because of this one issue than any of the others. Many leaders are excellent at managing up. They communicate with their superiors very well and share information freely. However, when it comes to their own staff, there is a glass ceiling. No information is shared and the trust and mutual respect breaks down. People will not follow someone that they do not respect and trust. Successful leaders surround themselves with qualified managers and then establish mutual trust and communication.

“A leader is most effective when people barely know he exists. When his work is done, his aim fulfilled, his troops will feel they did it themselves.” – Lao Tzu
Action Item: Stress occurs in people when they feel they don’t control their destiny. They believe they don’t know what to do to succeed, or it doesn’t matter what they do, it won’t make a difference. Empower your team to be successful. Tell them where to charge, remove the obstacles and develop mutual respect and trust.
Strategic Planning 101 – Why most efforts fail and how to avoid the most common mistakes!

In difficult economic times like this, when most companies are struggling, many are turning to the strategic planning process to address revenue, organizational, personnel and vendor challenges. My definition of strategic planning is as follows:
“Strategic planning is both a process and a discipline that enables an organization to concentrate its limited resources on mutually predetermined, measurable objectives. The purpose is to make decisions before the future either forces decisions or renders them irrelevant.”

This loosely translates to “make some good decisions before you run the company into the ground!” The problem is that many companies implement a poorly designed strategic planning process and do not address the real issues. To illustrate, I will borrow a parable from “The three laws of performance” by Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan (see my recommended reading list).

An old man was walking home late one night when he saw a friend on his hands and knees under a streetlight, searching for something. “What are you doing?” he asked his friend. “I dropped the key to my house.” “I’ll help you look.” After a few minutes of frustrated searching, the old man asked, “Where exactly were you when you dropped this key?” His friend pointed toward the darkness. “Over there.” “Then why are you looking for it here?” “Because this is where the light is.”

I think that this simple story eloquently demonstrates the problem. We tend to search for answers to our problems in places where it’s easy to look, rather than in the dark, unfamiliar (and often uncomfortable) hidden places.

The Strategic Planning Process

As my graphic indicates, there is a sequence of steps that need to be taken to properly implement a strategic planning session. One of the most important is to “decide” to plan, to dedicate the proper resources and to establish management commitment to dive into the difficult areas. In my experience, this is one of the most critical and most difficult steps. Therefore, it is often the Achilles’ heal of most planning sessions.

Let’s be honest, strategic planning is difficult. Many companies attempt it. They spend 2-3 (or more) days offsite. They put together a plan and get it nicely bound. The board approves it, and they file it away and forget about it. This demonstrates a commitment to the session, but not to the process. The exceptions are the companies who actually execute the plan. This is 10 times harder than actually building the plan! There must be an full-understanding and commitment to the entire process from top-down for the effort to be successful.

I will write more on strategic planning in future blogs, but let me close with one of my favorite stories on “commitment”. After landing his invasion forces on the shore, the Spanish explorer, Hernan Cortes immediately burned his own boats. It sent a message to his troops. “We can’t turn back. Either we succeed or we die. Excuses are not an option!” Whether it is an urban myth or true, it is a great example of commitment to a goal.

Action Item: If you are thinking about implementing a strategic planning session, research and implement a formal process. Do not go into the session without proper up-front planning and commitment. Consider using an outside facilitator with experience in strategic planning to lead the session.

The Journey or the Destination? Why do we always seem to get it wrong?

Which is more important, the journey or the destination? It all depends on your goals.

Throughout life, we are constantly reminded that we should focus on the journey, not the destination. Every book I have read about life management has reminded me that I need to live in the present. My wife reminds me of this fact almost daily. However, what do I do? I spend my life focusing on planning family vacations, career opportunities, college funds, and retirement. I am missing out on the present. The bottom line – I spend far too little time enjoying a simple family dinner, reading with my daughter, or playing a game of basketball with my two sons. Keeping a balance is an ongoing challenge. In our personal lives, the goal is to enjoy the present. The goal is not to rush to the finish line. I don’t know about you, but I am not in any rush to get to the end. However, we all tend to focus on rushing through our lives and getting to the end. Why do we focus on the wrong goal?
In business, we are programmed to set objectives, create measurable results and drive toward the goal. However, we all tend to lose sight of the goal and spend an incredible amount of energy focusing on the journey. Corporate bureaucracy can become paralyzing. How many times have you reached the end of the week and said, “I worked incredibly hard and I can’t point to anything I accomplished!” Too many organizations have difficulty focusing on the goal at hand. There is a human tendency to need to stay busy, and this is particularly evident in the corporate world. We surround ourselves with meetings, report-outs, planning sessions and 1-on-1 sessions to provide the illusion of importance and productivity.

How many times have you questioned a colleague’s work because they seemed to cut corners? They borrowed someone else’s template. They leveraged pre-existing work without putting in the “sweat-equity” and you felt resentful. As long as they didn’t steal the template, or use erroneous data to draw conclusions – good for them! As one of my managers once said to me, “never confuse effort with results”. Again, why do we focus on the wrong goal?

Action Item: Take a piece of paper and fold it in half vertically. On the left side, list your top three goals for the week. Under each one, list the key steps necessary to accomplish each goal. Then on the right side of the paper, list all the activities you have planned for the week. Circle the activities that directly correlate to your necessary steps on the left side of the page. Draw a line under the items that are required for your job. Draw a line through everything else. Now go back to the items that you drew a line under and determine if they can be eliminated or delegated to someone else. You will be surprised how your week will open up. Finally…, go back and complete your goals!

Business Lessons We Can Learn From Lance Armstrong

With the 2009 Tour de France beginning today — on July 4th, I can’t help but write an article on Lance Armstrong. For those of you who know me, I am a passionate cyclist and it would be out of character to ignore this opportunity.
One of the many things I like about cycling is that it clears my head and allows me to think through my challenges (or opportunities). The routine pedal strokes and breathing put you in a state of mind that is very similar to meditation. While I ride, I have the opportunity to work through many business issues. I have been surprised how many parallels I have noticed between business and cycling.

The following is a summary of some of the most important ones:

Clearly define your goal – Over the years, Lance has been criticized for not competing in more races throughout the season. Many professional cyclists ride far more races prior to the Tour de France than Lance. However, Armstrong has been very clear that his goal is to win the Tour de France. He focuses his entire effort on that single goal. Define your goal up front. Get out of businesses that don’t make sense. It can be very difficult to walk away from revenue. However, if it distracts you from your primary goal, then “just say no”.

Don’t start without a strategy – Are you a hill-climber or a sprinter? Will you attack early in the race, or late in the stage? Every business needs to establish a strategy up front. However, be willing to adjust as the race progresses.
Pick a great set of coaches and then listen to them – Lance has a large staff of coaches and advisors. Yes, he is a professional with years of experience. However, he also listens to the experts. Build a board of directors and board of advisors that you trust and then listen to them.

Pick the right team and then trust them – Armstrong surrounds himself with what he believes is the best cycling team in the world. The thing many people don’t understand about the Tour de France is how important the team becomes. They break the wind so that Lance can “draft” off of them and use up to 30% less energy. They protect him from the other riders. They bring him food and water. Your executive and departmental team is just as important.

Pick the right equipment – Armstrong rides on state-of-the-art equipment. His engineers have invented new gear that gives him specific competitive advantages. Make sure you are leveraging every appropriate piece of business technology.
Use state-of-the art techniques – New cycling techniques are developing constantly. Some work and some don’t. However, cyclists test new methodologies relentlessly. In business we need to do the same. Don’t ignore social networking because you think it is a fad or a waste of time. Investigate it and then make your own determination once you have the facts.

Train/prepare appropriately – There is no excuse for poor preparation.
Understand the course – Armstrong is known for training on the Tour de France course itself. He trains for months on the same course he will be racing. Understand your business plan and be clear what the course will look like.

Understand the environment – As much as you prepare, you can’t always anticipate bad weather. Understand your market. It will change like the weather, but if you plan for contingencies, you will have cold/warm weather gear available.

Research your competition – There are 20 teams racing in the Tour. Lance and his team (Astana) know every other team and rider as well as they possibly can. You need to know your competition equally well.

Take calculated risks – No successful executive or business owner has reached their goal by sitting back and being careful. Lance doesn’t sit at the back of the pack. He attacks the stages. However, his attacks are calculated against the risk profile. Take business risks, but only when the benefit outweighs the risk.
Pick your battles – The Tour is 21 stages long. The teams have detailed strategies on which stages to win and which to sit back. Business is the same. You can’t win every battle. However, you can win the important ones.

Pace yourself – The 2009 Tour is a total of 2,175 miles. Whether you are riding the tour or working toward a specific business goal – pace yourself or you will burn out.

Be humble – Many people think that Lance has won because he is super-human. The truth is that he is a phenomenal athlete. However, he is the first person to tell you that he has won because he has surrounded himself with an excellent team, world-class coaches, leading sponsors and then has been better prepared than any other rider. Lance would not — and will not — win the tour without his supporting cast. Any successful business executive will tell you the same thing.

Whether you are riding in the Tour de France, a cycling century (100 mile ride) or just around the neighborhood, it is a journey. Leading your business to success is no different. Don’t cut corners – make sure you are prepared. With a lot of preparation and a little luck, you will be holding the trophy at the end.

Building your Personal Brand

Corporate Roles have changed and how we all must prepare ourselves for this new corporate world. Today, I want to discuss the topic of personal branding. With respect to the job market and your career, personal branding is a means of defining and promoting your skills, strengths and interests in an effort to raise yourself above the white noise.

Define your Objective – Before you do anything, sit down and determine what you are trying to accomplish. People create a personal brand for many reasons, but in this case, let’s assume you are trying to create a professional brand that will establish you as a leader in your chosen field. This seems simple, but remember that people are successful if they have both the ability and the passion to succeed. Make sure that the brand you want to promote is both of these. Be as specific as possible (e.g., public relations manager for small to medium sized technology firms). Think about what defines you and separates you from the pack. How do you want people to see you?

Discover your Current Brand – Next you need to understand what brand you have today. Remember that everyone has a brand. If you ask your colleagues to describe you, what would they say? I firmly believe that none of us "own" our own brand. The market owns the brand. The market determines what our brand is. I can say that my brand is that of a “Business Management, Marketing, Leadership and Social Media Expert”. The truth is that you, the reader of this blog will decide what my brand is after you read this (and hopefully other ) articles. All I can do is promote, and hopefully influence, your perception of my brand.

Define your Messaging – Once you know what your current brand is (e.g., mid-level marketing manager) and what you want it to be (e.g., social media expert), then you can begin to define your messaging. What will you do to change the market perception of you from your “current” to your “target” brand? What will you communicate to the marketplace to define your brand? Will you promote your skills in a specific area? Will you give examples of your knowledge? Will you position yourself as a resource to others?

Choose your Tools – There are an overwhelming number of tools at your disposal to begin to brand yourself. My advice is to choose carefully because each tool has a unique value. Talk to others who have used them and determine what value they provide and how much effort is necessary. Remember that some of them can be a huge resource drain.

In my opinion, some of the best tools for building a personal business brand are as follows:

Social Media
LinkedIn – This is the single best tool at your disposal to define your business brand. Fully build your profile and keep it current.
Facebook – Determine quickly if you are going to separate your business brand from your personal brand. If you don’t want business associates seeing your college photos in Mexico, then secure your Facebook page or keep it professional.
Twitter – The power of Twitter is only beginning to be defined. Create a Twitter feed and use it to define your brand and cross-link back to your other online sites.
Blog – Your blog becomes your online profile. Make sure you cross-link between your blog, LinkedIn, Twitter, and other online sites.
VisualCV – This is a powerful tool to create an online resume, separate from your LinkedIn profile.
Email Signature – This is often overlooked. Create an email signature with hyperlinks to your LinkedIn profile, Twitter feed, VisualCV, and blog.
Physical
Resume, Biography, Transition document – These are all useful documents for different audiences. The transition document should be a single page targeted at people you will network with who may be able to help your career.
Business Cards – Create a separate business card from your full-time job that defines your brand. Include all your social media contacts (e.g., LinkedIn, Twitter, Blog, etc.)Face-To-Face

Never forget the importance of face-to-face communications. We sell ourselves best in person, not online or on the phone. Make sure that you attend networking events, find opportunities to speak on panels, and simply meet with colleagues 1-on-1 from time to time.
Implement your Plan – Now that you have defined your objective, messaging and tools, it is time to implement. My advice is to set realistic goals for yourself. It is easy to get overwhelmed. Start simple and build from there. Once you begin, listen to the feedback. Is your LinkedIn profile getting traffic? Are your blog postings resonating and getting comments? Learn from the feedback – both positive and negative. Create a two-way dialog with your target audience. Make sure you respond to people who take the time to comment on your blog. Always be sincere and helpful. You will make mistakes, but if you are sincere and helpful to your network, you should be fine. Finally, be consistent. The effort you put into building a brand will fade quickly if you do not continue the effort. By setting realistic goals, you should be able to continue your branding effort regardless of your workload. It simply becomes a part of your normal career.

Remember, your network and your personal brand are the two things you carry with you from job to job. With a little planning and effort, they will pay huge dividends. Good luck, and let me know how I can help…

What is the Correct Definition of “Success”?

The dictionary defines success as, “suc•cess (noun), the accomplishment of an aim or purpose”. Buried a little deeper in the definition, is the reference to, “a person who attains profit or prosperity”. At what point, did the definition of “success” become so aligned with net worth? I remember a line in a movie when I was very young where an overly aggressive executive made the comment that “net worth was a way of keeping score”. I can’t recall the movie, but it created a lot of debate, because at the time, it was inappropriate to discuss your net worth, salary or success in business. Much later, in the 1987 movie “Wall Street”, the character Gordon Gekko created the infamous line, “Greed is Good!” Throughout the 80s and 90s it felt like society embraced Gordon Gekko’s philosophy, and materialism reset the definition of success. We have reached a point where if someone comments that an individual is “very successful”; we assume it means they are very wealthy. We never ask what they are successful at, because we assume the reference is to wealth. The only question is, “how did they make their fortune?”

It was not always this way. There was a time when you could be a successful artist, athlete, mentor, volunteer, parent, teacher and yes, businessman. I have recently posted a number of articles discussing the changing corporate world and after a great deal of discussion, I believe one of the key factors driving this change is our new definition of success. When the singular focus of our careers is to attain prosperity, everything else becomes a distraction. Activities that don’t add to our net worth are considered a waste of time, and the “ends justify the means” seems to be a daily rationalization.

Many people will argue that this is not a recent phenomenon and that business has always been a cutthroat environment. This may be true, however today it seems to permeate the entire family. It feels to me that our advertising and marketing efforts have unfortunately succeeded, and we are all more materialistic and consumer focused than a generation or two ago.

Regardless of whether this is a new phenomenon, I am interested in how our definition of success has affected our corporate cultures. When I look back on the companies I have worked for and think about the cultures, I see dramatic differences. I worked for a company early in my career where the company was truly a family. I loved the people I worked with and appreciated the bonds, the mentorship and executive leadership. The company peaked and essentially fell off the radar over 20 years ago. However, employees still meet every Friday the 13th at a specified location for reunions. Most people look back on that experience as one of the best in their career. On the other hand, when I think about the company where I made the most money in my career, the culture was terrible. The only reason any of us stayed was that we were paid exceptionally well. There was no moral compass within the organization and the stress levels were incredibly high. There are no reunions and no one would attend if they were organized.

There was a time when success meant more than the bottom line. It meant building teams of highly motivated people. Individuals were proud to work for the company because it was an energizing environment. The board of directors, the executive leadership team, middle management and every employee in the company understood that we were part of a family, and that the people were the most important asset. This was not a slogan, but a true belief. Companies focused on training their employees and nurturing skill sets. Organizations offered back to the community, not as a public relations ploy, but because they knew it was the right thing to do. Companies did everything they could do to avoid layoffs, rather than using it as a tool to increase profits.

Do we really have the right definition of “success”, or is there a definition that is more accurate – and in the long run, will be more effective at driving world-class companies? Can profitability be a byproduct of companies being “successful” at creating a positive culture of growth, support, integrity and respect?

Business Integrity and Respect

Given the current job market, I have been thinking lately about how limited the classic resume is in terms of communicating personal characteristics such as integrity, respect and passion. It is unfortunate that the first review of candidates is based entirely on a piece of paper that is one-dimensional. This reinforces the argument that we all need to vuild a strong netwrok so that we have internal sponsors who can verbally communicate some of our personal values.
On a recent blog post, I received a comment that offered an outstanding quote on Integrity. It was a quote from 1998, by a Captain Conway, a platoon commander at the USMC’s Officer Candidate School. He said, “Integrity is like virginity. Once you lose it, you can never get it back.” In my opinion, this is very accurate. I see too many people in business, that are willing to compromise their integrity and business ethics – “just this one time”. It is as if it is a white lie and the ends-justify-the-means. The problem with this approach is that it is a very slippery slope. You do it once and the next time is much easier. We read every day about the executive who siphoned hundreds of thousands (or millions) of dollars out of the company. It seems each time, they started with a forged business dinner and that turned into a forged business trip and the rest is history.

The other issue is that your reputation cannot be repaired. We have all worked with, and known people in business who have demonstrated that they will cut corners and walk over people – as needed. This may have been effective for them in the short term, but it clearly tarnished their reputation in most people’s eyes. This is extremely difficult to repair.

Respect is another critical business element. There are plenty of examples of great political, military and business leaders who ruled with a draconian fist and were extremely effective. However, I can point to twice as many business leaders who built an environment of trust and respect that were just as effective. Leading soldiers into battle and leading employees in business are two different activities. Employees can quit and get a different job or worse yet, they can ignore or undermine you. I recognize that every leader has a different style. However, research has shown, leaders do not need to be feared to be effective. Treating a team with respect and building a positive culture will produce greater value in the long run. Employees who have gained the respect of their manager, feel good about their contribution and are able to go home to their families with their heads held high are far more effective than employees who are yelled at and talked down to. No project or job is more important than an individual’s self-esteem.
There was a time when employees stayed with companies for 20 years and felt they needed to put up with the difficult boss. Today, they have options and have no problem leaving. Building a positive culture of integrity and respect are critical to motivating and retaining talent. Your thoughts?

Follow the Herd or Follow the Puck?
My two sons (5th and 6th grade) love to play basketball. Recently, we got into a discussion about rebounding. Why are some NBA players so good at rebounding, when others seem to always be in the wrong place? I reminded them of Wayne Gretzky’s quote on why he is such a good hockey player – “A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.” Great NBA rebounders play the same way. They have an uncanny way of knowing where the ball will rebound. Human nature is to run to the hoop, but if you watch Kobe Bryant, he often stands outside the crowd and somehow knows the ball will rebound directly to him.

Business leadership is the same way. It is easy to follow the herd and emulate the competition. Most companies spend a lot of time on competitive analysis to anticipate and often copy their competitor’s products. We create websites that match our favorite competitor. We copy their campaigns and trade show booth designs. We build products that are very similar to theirs. This type of “herd mentality” creates excellent second-place players. However, none of us want to be in second place.

What is difficult is to stand alone on the court with conviction that the ball will come to us. Identifying where the ball will go – or in this case where the market will go takes vision, but positioning your company in that direction when everyone else is moving in the other direction is counter-intuitive. It is difficult to build a product that is unique and unexpected by the market. It is difficult to create a website that stands out from the others. It is difficult to create a new and untried channel of distribution or sales promotion. However, this is how first place players are created. To be fair, the “first to market” often fails and the “second to market” often learns from the failures of the first, to create a cheaper, better, faster version that ultimately becomes successful. However, the 20 or so other players who stayed in the safe mature market simply emulating the leader, or making small incremental improvements over the prior version, rarely become cover page successes.

The bottom line is that it takes conviction, passion, nerve and just a little bit of insanity to step outside our comfort zones to take the risk. However, once in a while, it is well worth it. The following video is a humorous look at a real world example of leadership. One person steps out from the crowd and makes a fool of himself. After a while a few others decide to join him. Finally, there is a tipping point where everyone wants to be a part of the action. This is how most leaders start out. Take a chance. Think differently. It may pay off!

“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.” — Theodore Roosevelt

Business Lessons From A Wise Old Fisherman
For those of you that follow my blog, you know that I write about my Grandpa Joe from time to time. What stands out about Grandpa Joe is that he was one of the happiest people I have ever met. He had a phenomenal sense of humor and could work a room of adults and/or children equally well. One of the reasons he was happy is that he had a great passion – fishing. He lived in Minnesota (known as “The Land of 10,000 Lakes”) and his world revolved around fishing. As a young lad, I learned that everything you need to know about the world, you could learn from fishing.
One of the lessons he taught me was “timing”. Fishing is all about timing. You need to be at the lake, river or stream when the fish are hungry. This is a lesson that most of us forget in business. We launch products or introduce marketing campaigns and spend little, or no time strategizing whether the “fish are hungry”. Never underestimate your target audience.

I, like most young boys, didn’t understand patience until I spent time with my grandfather. Fishing is all about patience. You can sit for hours without a nibble. However, you are learning the whole time. You learn from your mistakes. You try different spots. You try different bait. You try different tackle. In the end, you may hit big or you may walk away. Yet, throughout the day, you learned a tremendous amount. Don’t waste your efforts. Learn something from every endeavor.

On the other hand, you also need to know when to walk away. Only a fool will continue to fish in a spot that has no fish. My grandpa, being an accomplished practical joker, would send people to fish a pond that had no fish in it. They would come back complaining that they didn’t get a single bite. The next day Joe would come home with a string of fish and claim he caught them from that pond, and his buddy would be back the following day – wasting his time again. All the while, Grandpa Joe knew that the pond was empty. He loved having a “victim” to play a joke on.
We all need to know when to walk away from a deal. Customers, venture capitalists, vendors, partners and even employees will do the same thing. They can string you on and become a resource drain. You never hear “no”. You simply get a stall-tactic, such as a request for more information. I don’t believe they are as malicious as my grandfather. However, I think of him often in these situations and realize that he was right. You need to know when to walk away.

Finally, you need to realize that the “fish are biting right now” – as you read this. I would always ask my grandfather, “when is the best time to fish”, expecting him to give me a sophisticated and complicated answer. He would always say, “right now!” There is never a better time to get started than right now. Opportunities surround us, yet we become experts at finding reasons not to proceed. Your customers have needs and are talking to your competitors right now. The fish are biting. Others are catching the fish. Shouldn’t you grab your pole and get your fair share?

Don’t Worship a Hero, Become One.

It is easy to sit back and point to individuals who have accomplished great things and turn them into mythical legends. We tend to do this throughout our careers. It can be as simple as the sales guy in the northeast region who closed the company’s largest deal last quarter, or it can be the captain of the industry who turned around the failing company to create a market leader.

In business, we continue to find excuses for missing our goals. We point to the lack of leadership within the company. We point to the individual within the company who is a roadblock to success. We remember companies we have worked for who had great teams and great leaders and wonder why we don’t have the same in our current company. We look to leading companies in our market and wish for similar opportunities. It is easy to find a reason to give up and simply go through the motions without really trying.

It is far easier to point to someone else who has reached an accomplishment and convince yourself that they are a brilliant strategist, entrepreneur and/or leader, than to simply believe that they worked exceptionally hard to reach their goal.
If we believe that they were no better skilled than any of us, then we have to admit that we simply are not trying hard enough. That is an uncomfortable thought for many of us. The ironic fact is that often when we meet the leaders within our industry, we are let down by how “ordinary” they are. In many cases, they are less than ordinary.

There is a famous quote by Marianne Williamson where she explains that we are more afraid of our ability to succeed than our ability to fail, “…it is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure….”

What would happen if we stepped out and attempted those great things? Rather than complaining that no one is leading the critical team at the office or tackling the nightmare challenge, why not step up and own it yourself? What is the worst thing that would happen? Would it be more terrifying for you to fail or to succeed? If we are honest with ourselves, in many cases success is more intimidating than failure. Failure means that we are right where we started. Success means that people will be looking to you to succeed again on the next challenge.
Most of us have people in business that we admire. They may be famous for being the CEO of a successful company. They may be known for being an entrepreneur and changing an industry. They may have led a new industry trend such as social media. The common denominator is that they had a vision and the passion to work hard to achieve it. The other common element is that most of them failed several times before they succeeded.

Rather than worshiping a hero, step out and become one…

Inspiration

I was thinking the other day about what makes some business teams thrive and others struggle. They can have equal talent, equal resources, and equal tasks – yet some seem to be energized and others get “stuck in the mud”. I’ve come to the conclusion that much of this is due to an elusive element known as “inspiration”.

Inspiration is what gets us out of bed in the morning. It is what helps us create the new marketing plan. It is what causes us to lead the new team at the office. It is what wakes us up in the middle of the night with the design change that will give the new product line its competitive advantage. Inspiration comes at unlikely moments and from unexpected places. It is difficult to create from scratch, and some people seem to have an uncanny way of finding it and duplicating it.

This weekend I went for my usual bike ride. As I rode my 50-mile route into a headwind, I started wondering why I had decided to go for a ride when I could be laying on the couch reading the paper and drinking coffee. To motivate myself, I usually look for a rider ahead of me and then try to chase them down and pass them. As luck would have it, I saw a rider about a half-mile ahead and began to go after them. The closer I got, I could tell it was a female. She was clearly a strong rider because from behind, she had tremendous form. On a road bike you try to reduce wind resistance by keeping your arms and legs close to the frame. Her lower body was very surprisingly well aligned. As I got closer to her, I realized why. She had one leg. Her left leg was completely missing. It had been amputated at the hip. Suddenly, my complaining about the wind, the hills and any other challenges seemed silly. Here was rider with one leg, riding a very challenging course and keeping a very good pace.

When I caught her I looked over, but before I could say anything she said, “Good Morning!” There was not a sign of pain or struggle on her face. Her smile was sincere and heartfelt. You could tell, she actually meant to wish me a good morning. I was so inspired by her, that I said the first thing that came to mind, “You too! You Rock!” Not the most eloquent thing to say, but it was the best I could do.
She reminded me that inspiration can come from anywhere. People find it in their co-workers, in sports athletes and celebrities, in their faith, in their families, in business books and many other places. It is usually unexpected and it is almost always free. Unfortunately, we often miss it because we are busy looking elsewhere.
The girl riding with one leg in Santiago Canyon inspired me more than she will ever know. She reminded me that we can all help each other in very simple ways. Stay inspired and do your best to inspire others to reach their goals. It is the positive energy that helps us achieve more than we believe we ever could.

The Importance of a Positive Culture

Depending on the source, statistics show that anywhere from 7 to 9 out of 10 startup companies fail within 5 years of their founding. In today’s challenging economic markets, mature companies are failing left and right. Household-named companies who seemed rock-solid and a part of the country’s fabric, are also disappearing.
What differentiates those who fail from those who succeed? Generally, those who succeed are “firing on all cylinders”. Clearly, I am generalizing and we can always point to companies who succeed despite themselves. However, when you look at highly successful companies, they are typically running at very high levels of efficiency. They have maximized their probability of success by removing those obstacles that they can control and are leveraging every asset within their control.

A brilliant CEO cannot make a company successful all alone. A world-class executive team can’t either. It takes an entire company working in unison. Mobilizing a company cannot happen through fear and intimidation over the long haul. Yes, short-term targets can be hit, but over time the company will implode.
What makes great companies and attracts the best talent is a great culture. A culture of collaboration, creativity, strong work ethic, transparency, trust, integrity and honesty creates a foundation for success. Executive teams often ask, “why can’t we attract and retain world-class talent?” They wonder, “why do the employees leave at 5:00pm?” They struggle with the fact that employees “don’t think creatively and offer up good suggestions.” Often, this is because employees don’t feel empowered and part of the team. When the company takes a draconian approach to management and creates an environment of fear and uncertainty to drive employees, the results are exactly what you would expect – marginal at best.

Companies understand the need to get maximum efficiency out of each employee. Yet they often do exactly the opposite through their actions. To leverage your most important resource – your employees – treat them with respect and build trust through your actions. Create a culture of success not through transparent statements and banners, but through actions. Hire the best talent possible and then empower your employees to do their job, rather than be micro-managed. Trust them to make the right decisions and understand that they will make mistakes. You will be surprised how few mistakes they make. Create an environment where employees are not afraid to make mistakes, but rather they recognize the value of learning from the mistakes.
I have had the fortune of meeting many successful CEOs in my career and the common theme is simple. “I couldn’t have done it without surrounding myself with a great team, both executives and general employees. Hire the best team possible. Empower them to do their job well. Treat them the way you would want to be treated.”
One Employee Can Make the Difference

My 12-year-old son returned from a week of summer camp today. On the way home he stopped telling stories just long enough to ask, “Can we get pizza?” Apparently, depriving a 12-year-old from pizza for a week is cruel and unusual punishment.
We stopped at one of our favorite Italian restaurants on the way home and he devoured a cheese pizza. Oh, to have the metabolism of a teenager. The service at the restaurant was predictably good and it reminded me why we like to eat there. Not only is the food excellent, the prices reasonable, but the service is consistently good.

On the other hand, I could name several restaurants that, as a family, we have decided never to attend again. In fact, it has become a family inside joke when we drive by certain chains to say, “nope, can’t eat there anymore”. Or “behave or we will take you to XYZ restaurant”.

I attended a presentation this week on branding where the speaker asked, “How many people in the audience have had a bad experience with a service organization, and based on that single experience, have chosen never to do business with the company again?” Most of the people in the room raised their hands. Then he asked, “How many of you were negatively affected by a single employee?” Most of the hands stayed up. Next he asked, “How many of you have decided to avoid the entire company, not just the single store, or location?” Again, most of the hands stayed up.

This exercise reminds us that purchase decisions are more emotional than rational. The reality is that the single employee can’t affect the service experience at another location, and they may not even work at your local store any more. However, most of us make an emotional decision never to visit the entire chain again based on a single negative experience. Conversely, most of us can point to examples where a company went above and beyond normal expectations to provide exceptional service and gained loyal customers for life.

Never underestimate the value of a single act of courtesy or a single act of unprofessionalism. One positive or negative experience can influence a customer’s perceived value of a company for a lifetime. Additionally, customers are not shy in sharing their views with others. Therefore, that single event can also ripple through the marketplace by word of mouth, and now instantaneously through social media. A single event can create a “tipping point” that can shift market perception of your company.

In our case today, the food was exceptional, the prices were reasonable and our service was predictably very good. Our waiter treated us like we were his only customer and connected with each one of us at the table. Ironically, positive customer service takes less effort than negative service. When you impress a customer, they give you the benefit of the doubt. However, when you offend a customer, you spend significantly more effort trying to turn them around. Every interaction with your customer is an opportunity to move the needle in either a positive or negative direction. Never pass up the opportunity to reinforce the positive experience.

If we don’t take care of our customers, someone else will. – Unknown

Hard Work Beats Talent, When Talent Doesn’t Work Hard!

All three of my children play basketball in local leagues. One of the groups that they play with has t-shirts promoting their league and on the back of the shirt it has the phrase “Hard Work Beats Talent, When Talent Doesn’t Work Hard“. I love this shirt because it is a lesson that we can all learn from.

On an athletic level, it is clear. There are plenty of “gifted” athletes that never excel because they rely on their natural ability to pull them through. We see this in middle school, high school and we clearly see it in professional athletics. It is always sad to see money and fame ruin a great athlete’s career.

This lesson can also be seen in academics. Some students rely far too much on their natural ability and end up paying the price. We all have stories of high school valedictorians that never made it through college. On the other hand, we also have stories of kids who struggled through school and ended up very successful in life. Sometimes those challenges we faced, made us far more prepared for the real world.
There is no simple secret to success. There are no silver bullets. There are no short cuts. However, nothing is more important than preparation and hard work. Yes, we can always point to the examples of people who were successful by flying by the seat of their pants. We can also point to the guy who jumped off the 3-story building and walked away without a scratch. There are always exceptions. However, I prefer not to jump off buildings.

In business, we compete every day. We compete with other companies. We compete with other employees. We compete with other candidates during interviews. Does the most naturally talented individual always win? No. Does the most naturally talented individual win most of the time? I would argue “No”. In my experience the most prepared individual wins.

It is a common excuse in business to say, “We can’t compete with Goliath Corporation. They are 5 times our size!” Other companies will always have more people, more budget, better products, better market position and so on. This should not, and cannot, be an excuse. Why do startups with little or no budget beat billion dollar companies every day? It is simple – because they can. They are rifle focused. They usually only have one product, while larger companies have an array of products to worry about. They don’t have legacy issues to deal with. They know that failure is not an option, so they work exceptionally hard. If they don’t succeed, their company fails. They simply don’t have other revenue streams to fall back on. They are nimble and creative while larger companies are often bureaucratic and slow moving.

The lesson is simple, “Hard Work Beats Talent, When Talent Doesn’t Work Hard”. Don’t make excuses. Simply work hard and be prepared. You will win more often than you think.

The Only Thing that is Constant is Change

My wife and I dropped our children off for the first day of school this past week. They were clearly upset that summer was over and that they had to go back to school. I took the opportunity to attempt to teach them a life-lesson and reminded them that “change” is part of life. It happens whether you want it to or not. Summer is over. Fall is coming fast. School is beginning. Dad is starting a new job. Change is all around us. I used one of my favorite dad quotes, “The only thing that is constant is change”. Change is good. It is nature’s way of cleaning out the old, and bringing in the new. I was fairly eloquent, but when I looked back in the minivan, I realized that they were all listening to their iPods and missed the entire speech. Oh well, it is tough being a parent.

Throughout my career, I have had good jobs, bad jobs, mediocre jobs and times when I was in transition. In each case, I had to remind myself (and others around me) that none of these phases last forever. The good times will leave, and so will the bad times.

In this economy, at least one out of every ten people are out of work. Starbucks is doing great because everyone who is in transition is “networking” at your local coffee shop. Dry Cleaners are doing poorly because less people are dropping off their shirts to be laundered. Let’s look forward to the day that Starbucks is struggling and the dry cleaners are profitable again.

While most of us don’t want those jobs, the truth is that we are all learning to find our unique value that we can add to the workforce. We are learning the importance of differentiating ourselves and finding our unique positioning. The world needs CEOs, but it also needs mid-level managers, entry-level employees, inventors, administrators and “giant foam finger makers”. The key is to align your skills sets with the requirements of the market. We will all need to reinvent ourselves several times in our careers.

Change is inevitable. Change is good. You just need to be open minded to new opportunities that present themselves. To use another dad quote – “Life isn’t tied with a bow, but it’s still a gift. Enjoy every minute of it.”

All I Really Need to Know, I Learned in Kindergarten

One of my favorite business books was published in 1988. It was a very simple book entitled, “All I Really Need to Know, I Learned in Kindergarten”. The premise of the book is that the

simple lessons we learned in Kindergarten can carry us through the balance of our life. We would all be more successful and the world would be a better place if we applied a few simple rules. Share everything. Play fair. Don’t hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don’t take things that aren’t yours. Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody. Live a balanced life. Learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work some every day.

As I have advanced in my career, I have realized how true Robert Fulghum’s words are. The business executives who I have the most respect for, play by these simple rules. These executives attract the best talent. They have the strongest business partners. And, they have had the most consistently successful careers.

I find it interesting how often I am in business meetings and we are analyzing a very complex business issue. It may have to do with a channel partner relationship, an acquisition target, a business management process or a marketing campaign strategy. However, after lengthy dialog, it often comes down to a simple discussion about “doing the right thing”. The ultimate question is typically very easy to answer.
Ironically, many executives have spent so much of their career focusing on forecast models, margin analysis, manufacturing metrics and development cycles, that they have lost the ability to make simple business decisions based on common sense.
To be a successful business executive, there is always a baseline of business knowledge that is necessary. You need an understanding of finance, manufacturing, sales, marketing, product development, as well as industry domain expertise. Yet, the truly great executives are able to see beyond manufacturing variances, product margin, time-to-market advantage and fundamental ROI and distill the business decisions down to very a simple analysis. They remember that customers will purchase from you if you treat them fairly. They understand that employees will be loyal if you treat them with respect. When appropriate, they accept the blame and apologize for their mistakes. They understand that you can’t manage a business from a balance sheet alone.

Recently, my eight-year-old daughter asked me how my day went. I told her that I was in a business strategy meeting most of the day. I couldn’t describe much of the meeting to her because she wouldn’t have understood it, so I just gave her a very high-level description of the problem. Out of curiosity, I asked her what she would have decided, and without hesitation, she gave the right answer. I smiled and told her she was right. It took my eight-year-old daughter about three minutes to get to the same answer that it took eight extremely well paid executives five hours to get to. Sometimes the answer is easier than you think. I’ve gained a new respect for “bring your daughter to work” day.

Success requires you to have all three of the following characteristics:
Ability – To be successful at a given task, we need to have the skills necessary to complete the objective. However, we also need to believe that we have the ability. This often manifests itself as unrelenting optimism.

Desire – The goal must matter deeply to us. Passion drives individuals to overcome tremendous obstacles. Conversely, a lack of passion causes people to quit too early.
Opportunity – Ability and desire cannot succeed without opportunity. Depending on the task at hand, there are various resources (e.g., time, human, financial) that may be necessary to meet the specific goal.

If you are having trouble completing a specific task, ask yourself which of these characteristics you are missing. Then put a plan in place to give yourself the opportunity to succeed.

Based on your experience, are there other ingredients to success that don’t fall under these main categories?