The classic response was that we are working in a big enough company, on the top lists of Fortune 500, operating globally with diverse energy production and opportunities. Region-wise, two third of the energy demand would be coming from Pacific rim, with industrializing China hunger for more and more energy. On personal space, I was adding to remind our guys to keep on maintaining professionalism and preparing for the future in light of the next generation of skills (probably some of our guys were not quite comfortable with this notion). Referring to the best-seller Competing for the Future (Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad), we shall be ready to escape the past, do something to invent the future. An old book, yet still inspiring, that I bought a few years ago in Houston. Hamel and Prahalad indicated that inability to escape the past and inability to invent the future are great company diseases that make them failed.
As for our professional life, it is human that we all are proud of our great achievements in the past, and frequently that we are content with current performance that breed success. The one, among other things, that we might get trapped with this is that "success confirm strategy" mindset. We keep on doing things in the same way with the same thinking as it's already "proven" before that it makes us "success". We might "win" in the past because of abundant resources and it gets into subconsciious mind that "resources subsitute for creativity". The landscape of the future would require us to creatively adjust from time to time our approach to success. It might not be an immediate future, yet we need to get prepared. The "blue ocean" of the future is opportunities for those ready with new skill sets to tap in and reap the benefit. We have been seeing, for instance, that "customer subscription-based fee" is replaced with "ads revenue stream" in the business model such as Google, Yahoo and the like.
First thing first would be a question as to how that we have strong enough radar screen as to capture the fish of the future. How do we get in touch with the future. More importantly, do we have the courage to cross borders and go beyond -- out of current comfort zones. Let alone, if the risks are clear and the rewards (whatever huge it might be) are still a possibility. As Robert Kiyosaki (in Rich Dad Poor Dad, or other books I did not recall), we are always waiting for a green light. The light will never turn green, we have to make it green!
Get our mind to smartly read any leading indicator while wisely enough to deal with lagging indicators. Success of the past is a sweet memory, but it would not necesary be a ticket for a future success. In an interview wih Newsweek published this week, Dalai Lama said that "we don't talk about the past. We are looking to the future" when asked about his relationship with Beijing, recalling about meeting with Chinese leaders in the past for being reminded that Tibet has been part of China for centuries and being requested to state for no separation guarantee.
Do something. For the better future.
2 comments:
I think i am a true follower of your blog! It is amazing how you can construct the idea piece by piece yet so constructive and inspiring! Simply the best and I luv it! It is truly difficult to be different in a huge company - not to mention in a Fortune 500 one-when standard is the mandatory procedure to follow. I think uniqueness will never belong to huge and giant companies since they will need more resources, money, etc to accomodate any brilliant idea especially a company with Operational based like a mining company who had been operating successfully for more than 100 years. They are usually a "Fat Giant Elephant" who stomping on any idea that seemed out of a standard frame. The management usually came from an "Old school" that tends to deal more on old stuffs based rather than monetary beneficial based no matter how many hidden potentials in those new ideas. You are correct, we need to turn the light green but the decision maker should also see that we are trying to make a green light. At usual time, the decision maker put a red light even before we tell them what comes out of the green light we are making. Once i read in a book called "What comes after me,the book printed in 1915" what written inside it are very sad. It says "If you want to see how much you meant for a company, try to put your hands in a bucket of water and take it out of the water and see how it goes. The water will be shaking so hardly for the first time but then the wave become slower and calmer, after a while then try to see if there is any trace of your hands in that bucket of water. What makes us immortal is NOT what we can do possibly in this world but what we can do impossibly and inspire others to follow their ownself. I dedicate the thought of Robert Frost - one of the great thinker of 1916 about the road that less taken - just as you said "the courage to cross borders and go beyond -- out of current comfort zones". Hope this thought inspire you to write more and maybe one day we can see an opera called "IL Mare Calmo Della Serra - the calm of evening sea, an opera who talked about what you said in this article". I lend my Robert Frost especially for you:
THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
-From the same title of book by Robert Frost
Ma Tanto Benasai from the spanish lady! Hope your day is great
very well put, on the "elephant syndrome". The story of "putting the hands in a bucket of water" tell it all. I like it very much!
thanks for keep on sharing your thoughts. Many roads ahead I have not taken...including the ones less travelled by.
Post a Comment