==============

“Think of value creation, not valuation.”

–

Pranav Marwah

===============

I believe we need to spend more time these days discussing value creation before we begin talking about, well, anything else. I believe this for three reasons:

1. Today, it’s often about efficiency. Or minimizing to maximize. Minimize what to put in and then how creatively you craft the features. We should remember production is more about economical/efficient input and selling is more about thoughtful ideation. Regardless. I believe we need to talk more about maximizing without just talking about efficiency.
2. I worry we talk about “things” because they seem like the right thing to do, not because they will add value <based on our vision/mission>. I worry we don’t talk more, and understand better, about what value we provide people. Oh. A business typically knows what they see as value provided, but very rarely turn the telescope and see what value a possible customer desires <or receives>. I worry we don’t talk more about value creation.
3. Unless everyone wants to enter into a race to commodity business needs to start engaging in an effectiveness discussion. Efficiency is inherently about attempting to provide value by stripping away obstacles or the unnecessary. Effectiveness is inherently about persuading people some things are actually necessary for quality, enjoyment or substance to meet your outlay of investment (cash).

I would begin with the fact we know there is a relationship between velocity & value creation. As I noted in ‘obsession with velocity’, velocity is always about decisions. What I mean by that is there is never any lack of things to do in a business, but some just aren’t worth doing.

Velocity projects fall into 2 slots:

• value creation initiatives which increase velocity of value offered (transactional value opportunities)
• velocity initiatives which increase the velocity of the organization itself & indirectly enhances value (structural value elevation)

Make your project decisions wisely. Velocity is all that matters not only because it guarantees progress, rather than simple “hamster in a wheel” speed, but it also inherently gravitates toward value creation.

Regardless.

Value creation comes in two basic constructs: structural and transactional and revolves around efficiency and effectiveness.

Here you go. Just ponder.

efficiency and effectiveness

All value begins, and ends, with efficacy or the balance between efficiency & effectiveness. Many people when viewing his grid for the first time ask who would ever want to (a) be in the lower left hand quadrant or (b) be below the line at all.

Many business, and specific products, live & die off of efficiency. There is nothing wrong with that. In addition, a low cost provider will care less about effectiveness because their inherent ‘value’ is found in cheapest. I would argue everyone wants some balance but there will always be at least one incredibly efficient, not as effective, business and there will always be at least one incredibly effective business where efficiency is just not that important. Similarly, I could argue a business in & of itself can have all of these things within their business and the collection of them all make up the larger value creation offering.

Regardless. Look for your unique balance and, well, choose wisely.

structural value creation

This is the x axis. Efficiency to left effective to right.

Structural value can be generated through efficiency or effectiveness. Efficiency means your structural change reduces costs (tangibly or intangibly like time). Effectiveness means your structural change increases value to a point that increases price or offer opportunities for premium transactions/offers.

For example, adding 5G in a city is a structural value creation. It lifts everything to a higher value. Digital transformation is also. It’s an infrastructure change which provides structural value creation.

In addition. A structural value creation may, or may not additionally offer specific transactional value creation situations. What this means is incremental value for a specific transaction over and above the basic structural value creation.

transactional value creation

This is the Y axis.

Efficiency at the bottom, effective at top.

Organizations often seek bite sized improvements, therefore, may explore ways to offer distinct transactional value creation.

From an efficiency standpoint these could be things like frictionless engagement, speed, or any improvement which increases convenience or ease of use.

From an effectiveness standpoint these would be things which increase quality of actual transaction. Better products, more effective outcomes, etc.

For example. You could create a video platform, or an AI platform (to show traditional and technology) which enhances a specific transaction to a point in which you could create value (additional sales) or simply charge a higher price.

Value Proposition vs. Employee Value Proposition

Once identifying the value creation one offers a business you develop a value proposition ( a way to communicate what value you create). I would suggest this is an exercise not just for customers but also as a hiring criteria. You want to attract customers who desire what value you offer and you would like to hire people who contribute to your value creation proposition.

In its simplest terms, a value proposition is a positioning statement that explains what benefit you provide for who and what effective/efficient way you do it. Your value proposition isn’t meant to appeal to everyone, but it should have a value appeal of some distinction (not necessarily differentiation).

Lastly.

Now that maybe I’ve given you some things to ponder let me say, frankly, we don’t speak often enough about value creation dynamics within organizational modeling & business construct. Value creation, at its core, is all about people – what they do as well as what they think. Huh? When an individual feels like they are doing something of value & their value can be maximized, the organizational value creation inevitably is maximized. I would argue if you focus on the value-creation-structure the people will believe they are part of value creation and the formal structure will either fall in place or will be simpler to match up to how the value is created.

That’s it.

Value creation. I just don’t see how any business can have an effective vision or mission if they haven’t gone through this exercise. If you don’t have this conversation and go through the rigor, well, it seems like you run a major risk you will not get what you deserve – revenue, profit, customers or even employees.

===========

“We tend to hold ourself accountable for things we never did.  Hearts we never broke. People we didn’t hurt.  Souls we didn’t crush. “

—

coral-vellichor

=================

All these years I’ve been looking at the wrong side.

—

(via madelinemharris)

=============

Ok. Accountability, or responsibility, is always a good business topic. And, yes, I am a big personal responsibility person. But in business, within an organization, responsibility tends to be more shared responsibility than simple personal responsibility. I thought about this during a discussion on Distributed Leadership/Holocracy/etc type business models. These discussions tend to revolve around flat, flatter & flattened operating models. The point being everyone agrees there has to be some leadership roles and, yet, not be hierarchy or command/control.

Anyway. To be clear. I believe there is a strong relationship between shared responsibility and personal responsibility. The stronger the shared responsibility attitude & behavior within leadership & mentors & role models the stronger the development of personal responsibility muscle occurs in everyday schmucks like me. Conversely, if you are surrounded with lack of shared responsibility examples <or even those who espouse ‘selectively chosen shared responsibility’> the value of personal responsibility diminishes to an individual, therefore, they see less value in exhibiting personal responsibility.

We don’t talk about this relationship enough. Far too often we flippantly suggest “people should take responsibility for their actions.”

Well … no shit Sherlock. But if your role models or leaders are constantly passing the buck when the shit hits the fan to save their own bacon <and image> then what the hell … why would you not do the same?

Yeah. Sure. Everyone has to pull their weight and do their job and do what they say they are going to do … but very very rarely does an individual perform in a vacuum in a business.

This happens more so even in management. It drives me a little nuts when I hear some leaders discuss “delegating.”

Somehow delegating equals “absolved of responsibility.”

This is stupid irresponsible thinking.

My belief that it is stupid thinking is rooted in some common sesne I am fairly sure the US Military says:

 

You can delegate authority, but you cannot delegate responsibility.

In other words … you can give others the power to do things … you can delegate … but, no matter what happens … if something goes wrong … the final responsibility always lies with the one who has delegated authority. Sticking with the military as my guidance … this means if your business has an initiative that has gone SNAFU <“Situation Normal: All Fucked Up”> the blame … and the ultimate responsibility for the mistakes <fuck ups> falls … uhm … up.

The leader assumes responsibility. This is shared responsibility. In other words … this is leadership.

Once you become a business leader past a mom & pop management style business you have to face the concept of shared responsibility <and some embrace it and some reject it>.

Despite the fact you have delegated authority that ‘authority’ does not represent a discrete event and period in time. You bear the responsibility for the cascade of events, decisions and actions leading up to the ‘authority giving’ which means everything you have done up until that point provides the context for the delegating … yeah … you own the arena in which you have placed the delegatee.

But this gets exponentially worse <if you are thinking about becoming a business leader>. You actually also share responsibility for the consequences — intended and unintended. This is different than delegating authority <although it relates to it> and owning responsibility for the action … this goes beyond to the actual ripples from the decisions & actions.

Now. Some leaders have a nasty habit of assuming responsibility for the decision and the effect of the decision — within a finite period of time. The weakest leaders try and tie “that was out of my control” or “I wasn’t there for that” as soon as they can to a decision they make. The strongest leaders worry less about any carnage that has been left behind, but rather start worrying about any carnage the decisions & actions could possibly create for the future.

The truth is that business leaders should take a moment and remember the wise words of an American Indian. Red Cloud, an Oglala Lakota leader who led his people against the U.S. Army and later as his people transitioned from life on the plains to the reservation, stressed that when Indian people made a decision, it should be done with the welfare of the next seven generations in mind.

In a short term world where most business leaders are trying to make quarterly goals and just try and keep their job … thinking with the welfare of the next 7 generations seems … well … impossible. I imagine the real point is that most good business leaders assume some responsibility for the generations to come.  Some people may call this ‘long term strategy’ and some others will call it ‘keeping your eye on the horizon’ or even ‘having a vision’, well, I am no Harvard Business guru and all that high falutin’ stuff seems unnecessary. To me it is much more simple. You make decisions accepting the burden of responsibility for what will come and may arise from your decision.

You share the responsibility for what will, or may, come. And if you do that? Damn. You will do good and be good. And if you do not do that? Damn. You may get a shitload of attention and applause in the moment and a shitload of attention and anger in the future.

Why do I say that?

Because if you don’t really believe in shared responsibility and flit from one decision to the next in a transactional “responsible only to the moment” way you will end up rushing from issue to issue, reacting without a plan or a strategy or <worse> no care of longer term affect, creating carnage yet to be seen <because that type of leader tends to seek only the cheers in the moment>.

Just to point it out … with no plan that means anything can happen and a leader can justify anything. Because with no plan to measure a decision against anything can look right … and unpredictable can be touted as ‘flexible to the situation.’

All of this fits a short term leader in a short term world.

The people are few and far between these days who weigh their responses and assess long term affects. In today’s world it almost seems a race to be the first to judge or comment on a decision or action and far too many leaders actually manage to the public race to comment rather than the longer term assessment.

This is scary stuff for anyone to do but a business leader? Dangerous.

Even the best short term decision makers, if forced into a gauntlet of short term decisions, will struggle to insure at the end of the gauntlet they have kept walking northwards as they had been looking down the entire time. More often than not North will not be the direction you are facing nor will you have actually moved any closer to the North star.

I am not suggesting this longer term shared responsibility attitude is easy. In fact .. it is really really hard. In fact … it almost means you have to embrace a little “impossible” into what you actually make possible.

Huh?

In general I have always liked logical thinking <no matter how random the logic may be> but I always love it when someone combines some unexpected logic. Generally speaking the best unexpected logic actually comes from those who do the impossible … thinking of the impossible and seeing possibilities — the impossible being “knowing for sure what will happen in the future.” They make the spectacular leaps/chances, accepting responsibility and sharing responsibility, so that business can make the needed changes or just do the semi-risky things that keep a good business doing good things <things that may push against the borders of the status quo>.

Yeah.

Spectacular errors can only happen if you take spectacular chances. I am not fond of irresponsible risk taking and decision-making, but I am fond of doing ‘the right thing’ even when it may appear to be going against the stream. Sometimes that means a spectacular success, sometimes a spectacular error. But always something spectacular. And, I will tell you, what more could you want to say about your life as a leader but that you have done something spectacular? Especially if that ‘spectacular’ actually happens a generation later which permits you to sit back and say “I did the impossible … I viewed the future well.’

Anyway.

Shared responsibility is the burden of any good leader. They tend to be the leaders who understand they cannot really be sure what is going to happen to them over time, they weigh the risks to the best of their ability and let the chips fall as they may. I tend to believe their attitude is one of “you don’t want to act more fearfully than you have to.”

Good leaders have a tendency to hold themselves accountable for anything, everything and everyone … in varying degrees depending on the anything, everything and everyone. And, maybe most importantly, I tend to believe they understand that there is a relationship between shared responsibility and personal responsibility. And, practically speaking, you will never be viewed as a true leader if you do not.

Well.

You know what? To end this thing today let me offer two other words, typically associated with responsibility, obligation and duty.

Obligation refers general to something you are compelled to do by regulation, law, promise or morality. I think good leaders feel obligated to assume shared responsibility.

Duty, more so than obligation, springs from an internal moral or ethical impulse rather than from external demands.

I think good leaders feel a duty, not just obligation, to assume shared responsibility. Shared responsibility … not only do I believe we should discuss it more often <because it will foster better value in personal responsibility> but I also believe we should be demanding it of our leaders more often.

=================

“Any system of ethics must account for scarcity. If it doesn’t, humanity would perish due to misallocation of finite resources, including one’s own body.”

—-

Daniel Alexander Brackins

===============

“If somebody never gets enough of you, they will always want more”

―

Ashly Lorenzana

==================

I recently was asked to help a Brazilian design & brand consulting company expanding their business into the United State after they read my thoughts on Velocity in business (in particular my thoughts on the Velocity Zone).

It was a fascinating discussion in which I was, once again, reminded of the attitudinal differences between the United States and other countries.

While a Brazilian attitude with regard to how their work should come to life (a stronger attitude with regard to vividness & distinction) in this case it came down to abundance versus scarcity. I often found myself sitting back just thinking about how Brazil viewed the world thru a scarcity lens. It had a sense of urgency with regard to not just ‘use it or lose it’ but rather ‘if I don’t use it I will not survive.’ And that is where I gained my deepest insight – survival. In an abundant world survival may not be accepted as a fait accompli, but it certainly feels like it is more likely. In a scarcity world you almost feel like survival is a moment by moment aspect of life. This isn’t to suggest desperation but it does suggest two things:

• Enjoy the moments you have and maximize them (this comes to life in a business attitude of distinctness, boldness & distinction)
• Not fear of death but more aggressiveness in the moment to survive (this comes to life with grabbing what exists now rather than thinking something better may come along tomorrow)

Anyway.

It led to Velo. It’s a Portuguese spin on Velocity.

About Velo

We made up this word because, to us, its meaning is new. Velo is velocity with a Brazilian twist. Let’s call it the Portuguese version of Velocity.

We arrived at the term because we believe America business view is tainted by the concept of abundance – an abundance of opportunities, resources & money. It doesn’t mean all businesses actual have an abundance of money & resources just that in the back of their minds they believe America is abundant therefore attitudinally they don’t approach things through a scarcity lens. This affects decision making, strategic approaches, brand positioning and messaging, design , messaging and even budget allocation.

Abundance versus scarcity attitude

In an abundant world options are limitless, in other words, miss an opportunity and another will arise. Let’s call this a “limitless supply of water” attitude. Water is abundant so when presented with a glass of it unless I’m desperately thirsty it’s just a glass of water.  In a scarcity world a glass of water can mean life or death.

Now. In America we talk scarcity, but think abundance. This ‘abundance of options’ attitude affects not only our general attitude but also behavioral decisions – business decisions. We sift thru options with a slight lack of urgency. In Brazil one cannot simply talk scarcity but act upon it to insure you get your glass of water. Options are limited and you maximize the ones you do have.

We think of velocity in the same terms. Velocity is a scarce resource and demands a versatile view of communications, design, branding combined with a bold view on crafting a distinctive idea & brand. Velocity falters under an abundance attitude and can quickly become just speed – hamsters on a wheel in an abundant world. Velocity thrives within a scarcity attitude by assembling minimal viable teams with minimal viable products utilizing minimal viable assets & resources applying communications principles & thinking to maximize opportunities as scarce moments in time.  That’s a mouthful but suffice it to say Velocity thrives in a minimalist view.

Comunicação and scarcity

Comunicação is a little different than America communication. It’s a little bit bolder and distinct (remember, resources, including time & money are viewed as scarce therefore need to be maximized). The design has more vividness. The strategy is a little more bold. The branding is more distinct. The communications have a little more edge. Generally speaking the ideas are treated as a scarce resource not to be wasted with ‘safe’ thinking & doing, but rather vivid thinking that demands people pay attention.

Criatividade and scarcity

Criatividade is a little different than American creativity. In a scarcity world everyone is expected to be creative (remember, resources are scare therefore need to be maximized) therefore creativity comes to life from unexpected places in unexpected ways. There are no thinkers and doers in a scarcity Criatividade world, just doers who think & thinkers who do – all the time. Creativity is only abundant if you maximize the scarce resources at hand.

In an abundant world options seem limitless and discussion can actually be infinite all of which just ends with a less creative ‘safer’ solution. In a scarcity driven world options are treated as limited so discussion is finite with bolder, more vivid, creative solutions.

Think: Value on the Move

The essence of Velo is enabling value transactions to happen as effectively and efficiently as possible. By treating the world thru a scarcity lens we maximize time, resources, minds & skills to generate brand velocity.

So.

This is about a specific dysfunction in business – communication (or over communication).

I think we all have seen plenty of dysfunction in the upper ranks of business. This may sound obvious but what this means is a lot of dysfunctional people are actually chosen for upper level positions. It is curious because I struggle to believe we are oblivious to the spectrum of dysfunctionality. So why would any executive actually choose a person with some type of dysfunctional leadership qualities to take an upper level position?
I actually believe it is because we are breeding a brood of dysfunctional managers <or less competent managers if want to be kinder>.

To discuss this thought I begin with an article the Economist had about the British East India Company (article: “the company that ruled the waves”).

In the early 1800’s, before there was email and fax machines and overnight delivery and twitter, this private company successfully, and effectively, managed a far ranging organization across oceans & continents when the only means of communication was letter <or in person> by ship or overland <think months>. The success of the organization was dependent upon autonomous management. Note. The British East India Company was quite successful. Yes. Of course there were some spectacular management mistakes and there were also the ‘unmanageable’ factors … hurricanes, war with France, privateers, etc. but in general the upper level positions were manned by competent decisionmakers who balanced autonomy and the overall organizational needs and vision.

A couple thoughts on this success:

1. Traditions & values. The tradition & values of the organization <lets call them attitudes> were so intertwined into the individual’s learning & values that not only ‘in the field’ likeminded managers were consistently reproduced but the ultimate leaders in London could confidently predict the behavior of those in the field.
2. Distance honed responsibility. Without constant communication and feedback in the field managers had to make decisions on their own. They were responsible for their actions … to the home office as well as to the livelihoods of those immediately affected by the decision.

Therefore, with few communications, business was conducted … successfully. This suggests that the immediate and constant communication/feedback does not necessarily create better managers. In addition you would have to assume the depth & breadth of the constant communication <beyond the time consumption> does not help develop managers who take risks, learn on the job and take responsibility.

I thought of my own experience and I, frankly, envision I would have become a really crappy upper level manager if I had learned my management skills in today’s world of instant feedback/input.

In my 20’s I had three out of town clients and a team in the home office which I didn’t see all the time. For several years I had to delegate & trust a team, make decisions in the field, access my own managers based on assessed importance to do so … oh … and assume responsibility <for the good and the bad>.

Note: I am not old enough to have worked at the East India Company in the 1800’s.

Anyway. My guess is that delegating did not come naturally to me and if I hadn’t been forced to learn to do so, and inevitably learn how to trust a team, I most likely would have never learned it. This is not research proven but I imagine most people who actually like to make decisions suck at delegating <and have to learn to do it>.

Interestingly <and I am not sure it is exactly the same these days for young people in business> at that time moving up in an organization was often a battle of attrition. Most people who moved up did so based on their decisions balance sheet. In my words, decisions were not ‘blurry’ … they were yours.

Today? Decisions are often made within ‘smart systems’ in which there are immediate communications gathering consensus and gaining input. In other words … decisions are blurry. And, depending on the organization, the smart system can be used by someone to smartly shirk decision responsibility and place it in the hands of the system. Just to conclude that thought … that means a person’s resume is then stacked with blurry decisions <of which no sane interviewer would ever admit to>.

Look.

I am not anti-email. I believe it actually, when used correctly, enhances efficiency. I say that despite the fact I do believe “real time decisions” are not often necessary <we treat each decision like it has to be made in real time and often it doesn’t> as well as they are bad decisions <made without the use of information that could be easily available if you take the time to get it>. Regardless at no time prior has there been an ability to access a store of information and a computing capability with to enrich decisions … almost instantly. Therefore, if used correctly a smart system can enhance decision making ability.

But emails <and instant communication> have several costs – from the honing of managers to poor time utilization.

Email use is a hidden cost for many businesses but a formula developed by researchers in the UK/Australia assessed how much of an employee’s salary is effectively paying for their email use. The formula, reported in the International Journal of Internet and Enterprise Management, estimates that email use costs anywhere between £5,000 and £10,000 (about 8k to 15k) per employee each year.

The survey of company email use revealed typically that almost one in five emails was cc’ed unnecessarily to staff members other than the main recipient. 13% of received emails were irrelevant or untargeted and a mere 41% of received emails were for information purposes. Less than half of emails (46%) that required an action on the part of the recipient actually stated what the expected action was. And 56% of employees remarked that email is used too often instead of telephone or face-to-face. Ironically, almost half of employees (45%) felt that their own emails were easy to read.
But. This post isn’t about emails it is about developing good managers.

In a business world where it appears to me that hiring practices seem to initially filter <and increasingly post initial> almost exclusively on experience and qualifications assuming it is the most important factor of all, it ignores a reality where someone’s experience and/or qualifications is often … well … not really theirs. Oftentimes someone’s experience is simply experience of shared decision making responsibility – their main qualification is delegating risk and responsibility. And, yet, their qualifications are a list of ‘accomplished deeds.’

In my eyes, we are breeding <and rewarding> a group of managers whose strength is not making decisions. <yikes>

I truly believe you can take a person who is very smart who has the right attitude and train them to do a fantastic job, and be an excellent autonomous decision maker, if they have the right attitude. I personally prefer filtering on personality as a slightly higher selection factor than related experience.

Regardless. Even if we resolve the ‘teaching manager’ issues dis-functionality in upper level positions won’t ever completely go away. Why?
Well. Let me give this one a shot from personal experience not offering any solutions but rather offering ‘whys’ <and, by the way, I am not proud of number 2>. Although I believe it is fairly rare that a totally incompetent ‘dysfunctional’ person is elevated to a meaningful position <unless nepotism or favoritism is involved but let’s disregard those two> here is how I know I have been personally involved <please note: these are all partially outcomes of a traditional heieraccy oragnization and a distributed decision making model would resolve much of this>:

–          1. You believe you can fix them. The person is productive at some valuable aspect. Maybe even REALLY valuable. You convince yourself you can either fix the part that is obviously dysfunctional or supplement that person with someone who can fix it <deal with it> as part of the ongoing process.

–          2. Horse trading <the one I am not proud of>. Even with the greatest psychological/competency tests in the world you can still torture the numbers/information until they say what you want. Therefore a number of candidates get placed in a subjective discussion pool. In the end, sometimes, you are horse trading positions and people to get what you want, i.e., put someone here and you get someone there. Doesn’t matter if it is a small or large organization … I believe we all do it with good intentions (or how about … belief what we are doing will better the company).

–          3. Not ‘placing out’ flawed employees. Not many organizations have a ‘planned place out’ system for employees as they move up higher in the hierarchy. As people rise, and earn their stripes, we begin seeking to place them in an organization and not ‘place them out’ at any point. They have proven some value <albeit tied to a lesser responsibility> and therefore get assessed on value provided and not on value not-provided (or value they impede).

–          4. Today’s “speed to solution’ needs. Experience seems to count even more today than ever because of leaner organizations. At the expense of originality or innovation we are putting higher & higher value on speed to solution (getting something done). If you are good at the speed to solution, we seem to be able to overlook a slew of dysfunctional attributes.

Of course, none of these suggests that the decision maker is oblivious to the dysfunction and that is an entirely different issue. In the end I believe this creating dysfunctional managers is a big issue now … and certainly in the future. And I truly believe the incompetence is being driven significantly by instant overcommunication (which probably has some underlying issues like ‘less tolerance for mistakes’ and the concept of ‘share responsibility’ as well as managers who just don’t know how to delegate and instant communication continues to feed that behavior).

Somehow we need to resolve this issue or the only non-dysfunctional managers who will be in the upper level will be those who truly manage by numbers <because we know numbers never lie>. And that, my friends, is scary. The number crunchers will rule the world.

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“It is even better to act quickly and err than to hesitate until the time of action is past.”

–

Carl von Clausewitz

===================

“Don’t die hesitating.”

–

Unknown

============

Ok.

‘More people die hesitating’ is a metaphor <I think>. But I like it. Hesitation is pretty much the bane of everyone’s existence. We hesitate in Life and we hesitate in business. Surprisingly, more often than not, our hesitation is actually a reflection of calculation than it is any real fear of action.

Yup.

We think too much.

We more often than not hesitate to assess, calculate our next move and ‘be smarter’ as we move forward.

Unfortunately that hesitation also means we become a sitting duck for Life to shoot us where we stand. This is a corollary to “if you are stationary, you will not survive.” Its a corollary because that quote mostly refers to stagnancy and , in this case, this is simply non movement moments in a typically moving frame of reference. What this means is if someone is paying attention and you hesitate, they can kill you. Or. If you hesitate in the midst of chaotic movement you may get smashed by some other object simply because you didn’t shift out of its way.

Anyway.

Life, and business, is fairly consistent with regard to how it allocates Time to us. It places shit in front of us … moment after moment … minute by minute … hour by hour … and says “decide.” This means time is allocated with something within it not ‘nothing.’

What that means is there is rarely any space allocated for hesitation. In other words, there is rarely time for hesitation.

Regardless of whether you look at life as short … or as long as how much stuff you fill it with … you are demanded to use Life as well as you can and more often than not you are penalized if you hesitate.

Whew. When I read what I just wrote I am tempted to conclude we should not hesitate … like … EVER.

I start leaning even more in that direction of thought because I tend to believe if you look upon your Life and find reasons why you may not be where you want to be, besides some general incompetence, you will most likely find a time & place where you hesitated. But we shouldn’t conclude that because hesitation in exactly the right moment can actually save you from making some misstep or mistake.

What I will say is hesitation trips you up all the time <and sometimes in some very stealthy sneaky ways>. Hesitation is always standing nearby waiting to give you a gift that keeps giving … and most likely a gift you didn’t ask for nor want.

Here is the reality.

Sometimes you shouldn’t pause and think in general.

Sometimes you shouldn’t pause and think, specifically, … “maybe I should not do this because …”

 Sometimes you just gotta go … whether you are ready or not.

===

“You’re never going to be 100% ready and it’s never going to be just the right time, but that’s the point.  It means that every moment is also the right moment.  If you want it, you just have to do it.”

Zoeerose

====

All moments offer an opportunity to hesitate.

All moments offer an opportunity to judge yourself poorly or judge your ‘odds’ poorly.

All moments remind you that nothing is ever perfect in Life and Life actually demands you take imperfect scenarios and constantly make imperfect decisions & choices.

===

I was dying to

hear

someone say

That I didn’t need

to try so hard to be perfect,

That I was enough

and

it was okay”

—

Kuffr

===

I imagine I agree that, metaphorically, more people die … their dreams, their aspirations, their ‘good things they deserve’ … because of hesitation than anything else.

I imagine I think the root of most hesitation, beyond true thoughtfulness, is assessment of preparedness … and in general … we suck at that assessment <we seek as often as possible to get as close to perfection – to limit risk – prior to moving on>.

I imagine I should just close by saying that, generally, hesitation is dangerous.

It could kill you.

It could kill your dreams.

It could kill what could be.

But.

Here is the good news.

With the sheer number of possible decisions & choices Life throws at you every day you will have an opportunity to not hesitate in the very near future <assuming, of course, your last hesitation didn’t kill you>.

What I can tell you is that you should hesitate with care because hesitation, more often than not, may not actually kill you but will kill something that matters to you (what you want, a dream, hope, progress, etc.).

==============

“We are tossed about by external causes in many ways, and like waves driven by contrary winds, we waver and are unconscious of the issue and our fate.’

We think we are most ourselves when we are most passioate, whereas it is then we are most passive, caught in some ancestral torrent of impulse or feeling, and swept on to a precipitate reaction which meets only part of the situation because without thought only part of a situation can be perceived.”

―

Will Durant

====================

“Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life.

Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.”

—-

Golda Meir

============================

So.

This is about leadership & leading with an idea.

It would be an understatement to say that the number of ways a leader can lead are so numerous it would most likely take a book to explain them all <and people have certainly tried>. Trying to simplistically suggest “this is the way to lead” is simplistic tripe.

It would be an understatement to say that the number of ways a leader can articulate an idea for people to rally around and follow are so numerous it would most likely take a book to explain them all <and people have certainly tried>. Trying to simplistically suggest “this is the way to share ideas in a meaningful way” is  simplistic tripe.

That said. Today I will talk about leaders and ideas and articulating ideas. Let’s call it “the business idea” leadership challenge. For those of us who have had the fortune, or misfortune, of walking the halls of management in business we have all crossed paths with all the scary tactics and rhetoric associated with leaders who cannot articulate an idea if they actually tried <and most do try>. These are the leaders who do not really have the ability to articulate an idea well enough for the idea to gain traction and be implemented.

……………….. the idea ………………….

I sometimes believe what makes a good leader is the ability to articulate an idea so that <a> people can grasp it, <b> people can envision it as “something” tangible enough to want to hold it and <c> people can attach some emotional connection to it <ranging from ‘I believe’ to ‘passion’>. But many leaders just struggle with idea articulation and use a variety of tricks to present an idea in a way that encourages people to … well … believe in the idea.