It’s that time of the year when my mind starts to wander through the past activities and events in my life over the past 365 days. This ‘free-form’ thinking is a welcome break from routine. And while routines are often extremely important to setting pace in one’s personal and business life, these ‘wandering’ moments can be soulful and provide the catalyst for the next wave of energy and focus.
Guy Borgford’s blog post, Is Your Company Fearless, got me thinking about new year’s resolutions for 2011. Fear it seems, is what sets great companies apart. It is in being fearless then, where things seem to take flight.
Two iconic companies come to mind, Facebook and Google. While both have certainly changed my life, it is the mark of their tremendous corporate cultures that struck me.
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook once said, ‘it’s about being unafraid to break things in order to make them better.’
David Glazer, Engineering Director of Google calls it keeping the ‘cheese in motion’. Having recently reread Spencer Johnson’s book ‘Who moved my Cheese’, this statement made sense. Change happens. The more you are in your groove prepared for change the more you will adapt. And what two better companies to prove this point than Facebook and Google.
Time for resolutions on becoming more fearless in our lives and in our businesses.
In the past, reward was given to those who soldiered on the most, followed directions the best, and worked the longest hours. No wonder we used to refer to our daily work as the “grind”. Employees who are thriving today are nothing less than leaders in their own realm. Godin calls them “artists”, in the sense that they provide value to other peoples’ lives above and beyond what is expected of them. They are not replaceable cogs in the machine but “linchpins” as Godin calls them: indispensable components of the whole. You find them in your favourite coffee shop where the barista makes you feel so good that you would never think about getting your latte anywhere else. You find them in the flight attendant who puts a smile on your face with their wit and attention. They are the customer service reps who not only solve your problem but manage to make you laugh and completely forget why you were so frustrated before making the call. Linchpins are better listeners – they do what it takes to solve problems, and they engage with people. They are leaders at what they do; not because they have to, but because they can’t help but invest emotionally in the work they do.
Why are such leaders in everyday jobs still a rare find? The answer may be slightly more complex than you might think. People are leaders in their field because they are passionate about what they do. They truly care. The real challenge is that the majority of employees don’t do what they are really passionate about. They are in the wrong jobs, doing the wrong things that don’t really mean anything to them emotionally. This predicament was described by Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles in their 1993 bestseller “
