Break the Rules!

 

BREAK THE RULES!

Break the Rules!

The greatest leaders in the world do not have much in common. They differ in their positions, wealth, races, resources and ages. They have different styles of leading and all of them focus on different goals. But despite the differences, they do share one thing: Before they do anything to achieve greatness in their respective fields, they first break all the conventional rules of wisdom Rules that bind most f the people in chains of mental slavery that prevents them from achieving their goals and vision. They know, if you wanna make new rules you gotta break some rules(old).

Rules are different from principles. Principles are inherent which are proven & guaranteed ways towards achieving a desired result. But rules are temporary. Every successful person on this planet broke the conventional rules to reach to the position where they are now. Contrary to principles, which maximize your growth and provides the way to your destiny, rules act as a barrier in your journey to fulfilling your goals.

There are some predictable consequences depending upon whether you choose to submit to rules or decide to break them. Your obedience to the rules determines your level of success. As I said, rules are not principles. Rules are produced and incubated by the society. When you try to do something great, people around you who are regularly washed with the rules say, “Do not try this. Nobody has ever done that before. How will you do it?” When you think of influencing & impacting the world, rule says “You are not from the right family background with no resources. How will you do it?”

Break the Rules!

Rules sometimes becomes your biggest obstacles in your path of getting to your purpose. But it is those people who break and overcome these societal beliefs (which they sometimes call ‘norm’) and rules who make it to the top.

Any human who has done something significant in their life and impacted the world, never gave in to the rules created by others (which is generally their own measure of their potential).

Warren Buffett better known as the “Oracle of Omaha” said in once of his interviews that a major reason for his success in investments is that he does not go by the rules of the market. Every other investor follows the rule of investing when the market is flooded with investments. He went on to break this rule which inhabited even the minds of Big Investors.

In his book Good to Great: Why some companies Make the Leap… and others Don’t, author Jim Collins says that great leaders have the discipline to confront the most brutal facts about the current situation. They cut through the hype and spin to uncover the truth. They ask tough questions, face challenges squarely, and analyze both hard and soft data. In other words, they challenge the conventional rules and create their own rules.

Break the Rules!

Many people follow the rules because it sometimes encourage to label themselves as ‘leaders’. And this is the main difference between a manager and a leader. Managers mostly look on the outside environment to change their own life rather than focusing on themselves and how their presence can impact others.

A person who depends on the rules will generally wait for the right opportunities but leaders create opportunities for themselves. If you really want to make a difference in the world, you need to become a rule—breaker! The choice is all yours: either live an ordinary life as a rule-follower or make a difference by breaking rules!

 

 

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Real leaders don't boss

 

REAL LEADERS DON’T BOSS

Real leaders don't boss

Real Leadership does not necessarily come from attending seminars, webinars (more popular these days) or strictly from guidebooks. Real Leadership comes from within. Ordinary people become world-changing leaders when they discover themselves. That’s why I believe that true leadership is self-discovery. And that brings us to another aspect of true leadership which is to inspire and motivate people to achieve higher standards in their lives.

Real leaders never try to manipulate or control others. That is the difference between a leader and a boss. Leaders don’t boss. People who have this temptation to control others usually lack a sense of security in themselves. So when others try to reach at their level, they feel the insecurity of losing their position or entitlement and prevent them from progressing in many different ways. But they forget that in the process of doing so, they themselves are not moving anywhere. They are stuck at the same level where they try to prevent others from leveling up.

And real leaders knows the importance of inspiring and helping others to succeed. They neither try to stop people from advancing nor step down to reach people. They bring people to the level where they are and make the best out of them. Real leaders have a sense of obligation and commitment to help others succeed. The most joyous moment of their life is when they help people improve everyday even if that improvement is minute.

REAL LEADERS COMMUNICATE:

Real leaders don't boss

The ability to communicate effectively is one of the most crucial characteristic of a real leader. Due to technological advancement, person to person communication has been readily diminishing. A new concept in some of the world’s leading businesses and organizations.

It’s your responsibility as a leader to make a connection with your audience & competitors and the outcomes will be more consistent & predictable. So, make a commitment to communicate even when the stakes are high because unless you communicate you cannot understand their problems, thoughts and ideas to make yourself more effective.

REAL LEADERS LISTEN:

Listening to your people is a very important skill which you must prioritize if you really want to earn their respect. Most leaders really don’t have the appetite to listen, they just want to speak. They just want to be heard. Nobody wants to listen. Right? But unless you listen, you won’t learn new things. When you speak, you still know what you already knew. Your knowledge is still the same. But when you listen, your mind expands to other new things and you get to know from different perspectives which you might have never known if you would have just focused on speaking.

Apart from learning new things, there is another thing which can be considered a reason to listen. When you listen, the other person feels a sense of significance & approval. When you simply nod your head while listening or agree by making specific gestures, they feel important and approved. And when it’s your turn to speak, they are all ears towards your point of view.

REAL LEADERS KNOW CHARACTER COUNTS:

Real leaders don't boss

Leaders are commitment to their moral standards & ethics that they never violate. Leaders of character are highly trusted by the people they lead because of their Integrity and loyalty. There should be some intact principles and standards in place to guide your leadership journey and become more effective in taking the best out of people.

What are your thoughts about it? Do share below!

 

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Fail Forward!

FAIL FORWARD!

Fail Forward!

Soccer player Kyle Rote Jr. remarked, “There is no doubt in my mind that there are many ways to be a winner, but there is really only one way to be a loser and that is to fail and not look beyond the failure.” How people deal with failure determines the altitude of their success. What makes high achievers different from an average person? Why do some people sky rocket while others are looking to survive everyday through life?

It’s not what most people think. It’s not their family background, wealth, resources, opportunity or even high morals. Most of the high—achievers come from broken families, do not have plenty resources or wealth and some of them do not even get tremendous opportunities.

You know, the only difference that lies is in their way of perception of failure and success (yes!). This is the thing which you never learn in your school. Mistakes are perceived as negative in the schools. They punish you when you make a mistake. The result of this is that you end up with a poor mindset which conceives failures as a bad thing. And when failure strikes you on your blind side, instead of handling or managing it, you start losing grip over your emotions, faith and beliefs. You start to give in to failure. The result is that you end up living an average life: getting a job, pay bills, have kids, do this all your life and then die! And you never ever achieved your true potential! Tragic! Right?

So, why do we get discouraged by the failures? Why don’t we become insensitive towards failures? Because we have been trained to do so. Most of us are still slaves of our poor mentality which stops us from progressing in life. People are afraid of failure. The concept of failure have been so much exaggerated as negative that there is a psyche among us to avoid it as far as possible. This theory has contaminated our faith to succeed. To avoid this from happening anymore, we need to introduce a new concept and a belief and replace it with the old (maybe) and contemporary definition of Failure. We need to rediscover what failure is and how to use it to reach to a higher level in life.

Fail Forward!

No person in the world that lives or ever lived on this planet (however great) is/was insulated from failure. Everyone suffers some kind of failure in their lifetime. Whether it is individual failure or corporate failure. Everyone fails. Okay? Get this through your head fast. But the point is how some people not only survive the failure they face but also thrive to achieve their goals? As I said, the only difference is in their mind. Its not their IQ, EQ , SQ or any other shitty stuff. But it’s their perception and attitude towards handling that problem.

They perceive failure just as an interruption in their way to success. Failure gives you an opportunity to learn new things which you never learned before. When I say ‘new’ things, it automatically implies that you do not repeat the same mistakes that you committed in the past. Instead, you should learn from the past mistakes with an open mind and try not to repeat them again.

It’s not wise for you if you know that you made a serious mistake and you are repeating them continuously. But we do it all the time. Right? I call them habits. All of us have habits that are not aligned with our purposes and yet we repeat them again and again and feed it into our muscle memory that we can’t resist ourselves to do the same things again and again. In that case, failure is not a temporary blockage rather it becomes a permanent one.

Fail Forward!

It makes no sense to cry over the mistakes that you make. Because life is too short to waste in complaining and cursing. You should make the most of every opportunity to learn even if its failure. Every successful person is no exception to failure but instead of focusing too much on the failure, they make a note of things that the failure teaches them. Remember, life is short and there’s no time to complain for you. You have to make a decision whether you want to complain or learn. Within every failure, there is an opportunity to grow and learn and your job is to find those opportunities and incubate them at the right time.

No matter what happens to you in your journey towards your passion, you cannot fail unless you accept it. You can never fail as long as you keep learning! And one thing more, never let your past experience determine your future. Remember that ever successful person having a glorious present have had a tough and horrifying past with lots of failures and Rejections. But they never let the failures of their past determine their future. Don’t be afraid to step out for what you want to become and achieve because failure can’t defeat you until you accept it.

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Secrets of Innovative Companies

Entrepreneurship (innovation)
Innovative Companies

Innovation

The organizations with a long-lasting vision have been time-tested to make an impact on the world. These are the organizations which not only survived the test of time but also endured to the future. Visionary companies like Procter & Gamble, Sony, Hewlett-Packard, Johnson & Johnson, Wal-Mart and Ford are not only lasting long in their business but also impact and influence on the whole world. What is the primary difference between these companies and their competitors that leads to growth of one organization and mere sustainence of the other?

Collins and Porras (1996, p. 78) have portrayed the Yin-Yang symbol to deliberate that a well-conceived vision is embodied by two distinct but integral elements: core ideology and envisioned future. While the former defines what the enterprise stands for and why it exists, the latter defines what the enterprise aspires to achieve and what it should become.

As Collins and Porras(1996, p. 102) believe that visionary companies require 1% vision and 99% alignment, their framework is not to keep a perfect balance between the foundation and progress but to perceive them as a rather two powerful elements, inextricably linked together for the ultimate benefit of the enterprise. It is nothing more than a management of continuity and change – to simultaneously preserving the core while stimulating the progress.

Core Ideology

When leaders die, products become obsolete, markets change and new technologies emerge, the core ideology serves as the unchangeable element of a well-conceived vision to remind those within the enterprise of what it stands for and why it exists – a timeless personality behind the way of doing business. Divided among two integral components, it is the glue to hold those within the enterprise to keep their focus closely together when everything else is up for grabs; core values and core purpose. While the former is a set of principles and tenets to guide the way business is being done, the latter provides the reason for doing so.

Innovation

Core values are the set of principles and tenets that form up a natural and non-negotiable guiding system for the way of doing business. They are independent from the market and products of an enterprise but merely based on its beliefs and aspiration for the reason of existence.

Collins and Porras (1996, p. 81) found out that companies tend to have only a few core values, usually between three and five, as any more than that is believed to be confused with other factors; leading the term core to describe only those values to be fundamentally and deeply held that will rarely change. They are the plumb line by which decision-making should be assessed and to determine those who are fit for the enterprise.

One may observe the core values of an enterprise from the way interpersonal relationships are formed up. Whilst some are filled with loyalty and sacrifice, others are filled with freedom and pleasure; each being based on what is perceived to be truly important and most appropriate for one’s nature of being. As on one hand, core values cannot be created but must be discovered, since unless they will genuinely fit with one’s nature of being, deception takes place. On the other hand, there is no universally right set of core values that should be applied, as what is important is for one to keep them steadfast, even if this requires to breakup with the other.

The core purpose defines the soul of an enterprise – the fundamental reason of existence. Although it is possible for an organisation to achieve a goal, Collins and Porras (1996, p. 86) portrayed the Core Purpose like the guiding star on the horizon – a star that can never be reached but forever pursued.

The core purpose is not defined by the enterprise’s output as it is neither linked to its products nor to its markets. It is an underlying driving force which empowers those within the enterprise to do its work beyond the desire to make a profit. Being neither imposed nor inflicted but merely to provide a meaningful business, the enterprise should only attract those who are predisposed to it and to repel those who are not.

Innovation

Envisioned Future

While the core ideology is a discovery process, the envisioned future is a creative one. It is divided among two components that each one compliments the other: Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals and Vivid Description. While the former involves a time yet unrealized, the latter conveys concreteness in terms of visibility and understanding.

Collins and Porras (1996, p. 94) found out that visionary companies create bold and ambitious missions, which they interpreted as the Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals – a powerful way to stimulate progress. They are concise, easy to understand and capable to be expressed in a multitude of ways.

Unlike the usual goals which any enterprise strives to achieve, a well-conceived vision is embodied by a BHAG, which is clear and compelling to serve as the collective focal point of effort and the motivational key for those within the enterprise. It carries a clear finish line to be reached but goes beyond the current capabilities of the enterprise, as it requires a long-term effort (10 - 30 years) and an extraordinary effort from all those within the enterprise to reach it. Although Collins and Porras suggested a probability of 50% to 70% of success, it serves as the articulated corporate goal of an enterprise that is potentially within the reach but requires a certain level of unreasonable self-confidence.

It is important to note however, that although success is very important for a visionary enterprise, a BHAG is effective only as long as it has not yet been achieved. Since a BHAG carries a clear finish line that can be achieved, Collins and Porras (1996, p. 101) pointed out the “We’re Arrived” syndrome which they believe to occur once a company successfully achieves its BHAG but fails to replace it with another. It is a syndrome which causes the loss of momentum and excitement among those within the enterprise.

A vivid description is the opportunity to express in detail the outcome of one’s vision – the art to portay a vision into a vibrant and engaging image. It is essential to translate a sense of tangibility, as it releases the passion of those within the enterprise to generate the input and commitment that an enterprise needs to achieve its BHAG. It is the key to enable those within the enterprise to conceptualize their destination and to keep their focus throughout the journey.

Entrepreneurship(Preserving The Innovation)
Never Settle for Present Accomplishments

Innovation

Innovative Companies always strive to improve themselves. They are never satisfied with their achievements in the past but they always look forward to meeting the needs of the future by anticipating new changes. They are constantly motivated. They are never averse from taking risks to improve the quality of their service.

Visionary companies attain their extraordinary position not so much because of their superior insights or some hidden ‘secrets of success’ but largely because of the simple idea of commitment to Improvement. They improve continuously, converting their weaknesses into strengths and strengths as uniqueness. Their Uniqueness is what gives them value and separates from the common companies.

Innovation is the key factor that separates long-lasting companies from companies which survive for a short period of time. A good book to read for a visionary leader is “ In search of excellence”. In the book the authors clearly describes the importance of innovation for success of the organizations. The authors quotes, “ The most discouraging fact of big corporate life is the loss of what got them big in the first place: Innovation.” Visionary leaders are ready to take risks on new things and make mistakes. A sort of playfulness is linked with such innovation. For example, at HP, product designers keep models of their new products on their tasks. This is done so that everyone can try them out. Doing this gives them a picture of the public interests and exposes them to new ideas to do something different next time. Never be satisfied with the accomplishments of your past. It can be a great trap for the success of your organization. Sometimes they can stop us from progressing further. Always look forward to innovating something different and unique as said by billionaire entrepreneur Jack Ma, “ You should learn from your competitor but never copy. Copy and you Die.”

Entrepreneurship(Applying Innovation)
Innovation Management

Innovation

Many Innovative leaders have criticized traditional management training. For example, Elon Musk, founder of Tesla, SpaceX, and PayPal, argued that “As much as possible, avoid hiring MBAs. MBA programs don’t teach people how to create companies… At my companies, our position is that we hire someone in spite of an MBA, not because of one.”(Nathan Furr & Jeff Dyer 2014) While we all recognize that management training has immense value, why do some leaders of innovative companies offer such harsh criticism?

It’s because we have somehow made a wrong turn when it comes to innovation. In 1911 Frederick Taylor wrote the landmark book Principles of Scientific Management. It had such a powerful impact on the emerging industrial corporations of twentieth century that it earned Taylor the title “father of scientific management.” Taylor’s management principles were taught at the new, emerging business schools of the day and applied at rising industrial powers such as Ford Motor Company and General Electric. Indeed, Henry Ford, Alfred Soan, and the other corporate legends looked to scientific management as their management textbook, and Taylor’s influence is still felt in business schools worldwide.

What were Taylor’s principles of scientific management? First, he recommended that work be carefully planned and broken into separate tasks. The idea was that managers could analyze the tasks of production-for example, though time and motion studies-to determine the fastest and most cost-effective way to complete them. Then the manager’s job was to make sure the task was standardized as much as possible and that workers followed the prescribed process. This task specialization was critical because it offered numerous benefits by allowing for clear responsibility and accountability.

These principles-task specialization, work standardization, accountability, and division of labor-quickly spread throughout US Industry. These ideas greatly simplified the job of managing the complex tasks of the emerging Industrial corporations. Moreover, these principles-when applied effectively-had a powerful positive impact on the performance of the large companies.

REFERENCES:

1.       Rick Tocquigny & Andy Butcher, When Core Values Are Strategic, Pub. 2012, Pg. 08

2.       Stephen R. Covey, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Pub. 2003

3.       Thomas J. Peters & Robert H. Waterman Jr., In Search Of Excellence, Pub. 1979

4.       Entrepreneur, Alibaba & the 40 Thieves of Success, Pub. By: Think Maverick

5.       See http://www.quoteswise.com/elon-musk-quotes-2.html.

6.       Nathan Furr & Jeff Dyer, The Innovator’s method, Pub. 2014

7.       Frederick Winslow Taylor, The Principles of Scientific Management (NewYork: Norton, 1911).

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