Most business blogs, including this one, cannot and, therefore, should not be taken as gospel by which to live. To do so is, as Richard D’Aveni, once a professor of strategic management of Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, said, “to set yourself up for a fall.” Ten years after the 18 businesses qualified as “visionary” by Collins and Porras in Built to Last, half of them have seen big downs following their prior visionary years of ups.
Such blogs do, however, do one thing. They inspire people by showing examples, examples of people who have “done it;” whatever “it” is supposed to have been, or is supposed to be, or might at some time in the future be.
And, if they have done it, then you can do it too, right?
Well, not necessarily. Just because others have, in their circumstances, “done it,” does not necessarily mean you can do it in yours. Most of the visionary businesses listed in Built to Last, Good to Great, and others were huge and had been built up over scores of years from more humble beginnings. They were selected because they had become visionaries, had survived the pangs of middle age and shown they were (in their time, in their prime) great. Which “Greatness,” defined by Jim Collins in Good to Great consisted of financial performance several multiples better than market average over a sustained period of the then recent past. Money is, as they say, the way of keeping score.
You, on the other hand, are just starting out, not even sure exactly what your embryonic enterprise, being gestated in your parental womb of entrepreneurial potential, is or will be. But what you do know is, you are tired of being whatever it is you are tired of being and you want to start your own company and you want to be “Great!” in business. And, at the same time, you would like it very much if you could also perform financially several multiples better than market averages over a sustained period of the future.
And I know how you feel. I know how you feel, because many times in my life, I have felt the same way, but let me tell you what I found out. The vast majority of people, “nine nines out of a billion” as I call them, fail to achieve the Greatness! they deserve
Why do they fail? They fail because they define their greatness the wrong way. And while they may achieve what they think they want over the short term, sooner or later, they come to realize the greatness they thought they wanted, the greatness they thought they had, is gone, because they focused almost exclusively on what money they could take out of their enterprise instead of focusing on what life’s precious resources they could grow inside their company and how they could then use those resources to do great things for the other people, places, and things to whom and which and for whom and which they didn’t realize their values should have made them responsible.
And so, in response to my own personal failures, having realized this epiphany, I shifted, as instructed by Covey and others, my paradigm and changed my definition of greatness and came up with my own definition by which to measure myself against the world. A definition by which, regardless of whatever circumstances in which I found myself, I would be able to see myself as a successful person and a definition by which I could honestly and truly call myself “Great! All the time!”
So, before we start doing “whatever it takes!” to make you Great! in Business, let’s agree on our definition of what Greatness! is. Here’s my definition:
Greatness! — is a peaceful and satisfied state of mind resulting from using proaction, perception, planning, preparation, practice, and persistence to promote one’s values, vision, and mission into a practically perfect performance of a balanced creation, highest and best use, and recreation of life’s precious resources of self, time, effort, energy, emotion, intellect, property, and people to do the best thing in the present circumstances for the optimal balance of the highest priority and the most of those people, places, and things with whom and which one has relationships and to whom and which and for whom and which one’s values make one responsible.
Tell me, you and/or your present or future business doing or perceiving, planning, preparing, and practicing persistently to do this?
If so, how? If not, why not?
Post your answer to this question in a comment, or on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn.
In the meantime, you GOTTABGATT! so go out there today and be Great! All the time!
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In Part 1, we discussed the “big picture” of Greatness! Now, in this Part 2, let’s begin with the end in mind and discuss in just a bit more detail the concept of Greatness!, which must drive you to be Great! in business.