April 22, 2014 at 7:27 am, by Carl

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Back in March, my favorite magazine Fast Company released their issue on the most innovative companies.  Their current editor, Robert Saflan, wrote a great intro piece laying out his observations on the top clues about success.  He was writing, of course, for businesses, but for sure higher education could take lessons here.  And, I think your personal life could grow from these ideas too.

 

Here are a few of the key ideas that hit me:

 

  • Exceptional is expected—you must execute at a high level repeatedly.  The point isn’t that everyone or every business will be exceptional—tragically that is simply not true in America anymore.  Rather, here is your chance to stand out.   Remember, whatever is rare becomes valuable, so if you will develop this for your business, your service or your way of life, you will stand out.

 

  • Passion is underrated—tapping into a genuine fan base is powerful;  the point Saflan is making that if you develop fans, ride their passion.  I would add here that you obviously need to create fans.  If your style is so acerbic that you turn everyone off, well…..  Each semester, I remind students about clues for success, and one of those is to “build allies.”  Remember, God created us for relationships and we simply cannot live well without them.

 

  • Conflict isn’t required—making change in the face of calcified institutions [or opponents]…sometimes you simply go around them.  I LOVE this one…but I am horrible at it.  One of my friends says often “oh Carl, he loves running through walls.”  He’s wrong of course…I don’t like conflict and I certainly don’t go looking for battles.  However, I will stand my ground and speak my truth directly.  However, I often find there are many ways to get to where I want, so I look for those other ways.  The way of conflict and battle is not the only way.  Don’t make every step in your life some war zone.

 

  • Happy Customers make you happy—don’t forget what made you great; reward grateful users with happy experiences, good new features, solving nagging problems.  Man, do I know some professors who need to learn this one.  They will, of course, accuse me of suggesting that we treat students only as customers and cater to their every whim.  That’s not it all!  Rather, what I mean is back to the idea of building allies.  As you work, you want to show the other person (customer or student or boss) that you are working for their success as much as your own.  When people realize you are in their corner, they are much more likely  to do the hard thing for you.

 

  • Dreaming Big isn’t Folly; its required—this goes back to Jim Collins and his work Good to Great where he wrote about the idea of BHAG…as Saflan states, without big dreams we’ll never find our way forward to what is really possible.   Don’t fear failure (I will be blogging more on this soon).  Dream big and go for it.  If you lose, you lose, but you can learn tons in the attempt.  From there, you can see new things to do that may still get you to your desired end.  And if you don’t?

 

Well, listen again to President Theodore Roosevelt—

 

It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how  the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better.  The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”