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Simple Secrets to Success
By James "Skip" Lemoine
While cleaning out some old files on my computer, I ran across an article I'd completely forgotten about, one that I wrote several years ago for a few state newsletters. After giving it a read… hey, this isn't bad stuff… and most importantly, it's all still true. So, I thought, why not unearth it, dust it off a bit, and present it to the new generation of student, business, community, and healthcare leaders? Here it is, presented for the first time in four years, and still somewhat worth a read for anyone wanting to learn how to set themselves apart in the modern world.
One of the most important lessons I learned from my time spent in student organizations was knowledge of what it really, truly takes to succeed in the modern business world. By “succeed,” I don’t mean finding a decent job and sticking with it for a few years. If that's all you're looking for, you probably don't need to bother with reading the rest of this. By “succeed,” I mean getting that good job, making a real difference, impressing the right people, and working your way fairly rapidly up the corporate ladder.
Over the last few years, I’ve had the fantastic opportunity to meet and work with several executives and CEO’s from large American and global enterprises. I often ask these walking success stories what their “secrets of success” are, and I always seem to receive one of the same two answers. Those two answers, coincidentally enough, are the same two lessons that I gained through my service in student organizations. So read on, and remember, it’s not just me telling you this; you're reading a sliver of the combined wisdom of several great business successes.
The first secret is what a friend of mine likes to call, “execution, and that doesn’t mean killing off your bad employees.” Execution is the art of making things happen. Sounds simple, right? But lots of people in all kinds of vocations can sit around in planning meetings for days (days!) and endlessly discuss “the way things should be.” Even more people go through life thinking about great ideas and wondering if anyone will ever capitalize on them, or saying things like, “somebody oughtta do something about that.” The true success stories in the world are the people who take these great ideas and turn them into reality. No procrastination, no passing the buck, no finding excuses… just simple execution. In the business world, successful employees are the ones who not only rise to the challenge when there’s a new task before them, but also go above and beyond what’s expected to make a true impact on their environment.
It’s easy to say, it’s easy to read, but it’s much harder to do: a good executer is rare. These are the people who go beyond the planning stage and do whatever it takes to make things happen. These are not people who self-consciously wonder if they’ll fail, or people who wait for others to take the reins of leadership. These are people who are willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done. And these are the people who get the big raises you always read about in Forbes and Fast Company.
The second secret is also easy to talk about, but much harder to accomplish. The art of Creative Problem Solving is almost a Lost Art these days, and in the business world, finding an employee with truly unique perspectives is like finding a treasure. Yes-men and yes-women are easy to spot – genuinely creative types are much rarer. There is a mindset in many businesses today that if something’s always been done a certain way, then it always should be done that way. Many businesses are afraid of change – why risk what's worked, why spend valuable resources on trying something new? Most workers in America today won’t fight that attitude; after all, if so many upper managers think something, it must be true, right?
Back when I worked for AllTel, I had an employee who was constantly coming up with ideas which were so “out there,” that some managers took to ignoring him. And although a handful of those ideas really were unfeasible, I did my best to listen to every one, because every now and then, that employee would strike gold. Just before a job transfer that placed us at opposite ends of the country, I worked with him to turn one of his ideas into a company-wide program, a program which proved to be very successful… and very different from anything the company had tried before. There was a great deal of opposition at first from the usual suspects, the followers who were afraid of change… but we pressed on with his idea, because we knew that it was a good one. The company (and, indirectly, the two of us) reaped the benefits from his burst of creative energy.
So the secret to business success? Boil it down and you’ll get, “Don’t be afraid to be a bit of a rebel.” Don’t be afraid to take your ideas and run with them, no matter how different they are from what’s been done before. You don’t need to be lucky to be successful in business, because people who think creatively and execute well make their own luck. Take a step back, look at the problem you’re faced with from a new perspective, then go make things happen! After all, as one philosopher said…
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world around him, because that is the reasonable thing to do.
The unreasonable man attempts to adapt the world to fit his own needs and desires… to make things the way he thinks they should be.
Thus, all the world’s progress has been caused by unreasonable men.”
James "Skip" Lemoine, a former Regional Manager for Cingular Wireless, is a Leadership Fellow with TRI and the Editor of the Leadership Solutions Network. Click here to learn more about Skip and how to contact him.
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