Mark’s Daily Thought – Ideas from Mark Fritz to help you Get Ahead, Stay Ahead and Be Successful
To grow, we need to try something new, and we will never be competent at first. The feeling of being incompetent is what stops many from starting and others from quitting too soon. Success is often about taking action and moving from incompetent to competent as quickly as you can.
Mark’s Daily Thought – Ideas from Mark Fritz to help you Get Ahead, Stay Ahead and Be Successful
A great way to grow faster is to be around people who are smarter than you. That takes confidence in yourself, as it means you won’t be the centre of attention. However, you will be in the centre of learning & development and it will not be so far into the future when you will be considered one of those smart people.
Mark’s Daily Thought – Ideas from Mark Fritz to help you Get Ahead, Stay Ahead and Be Successful
Self-awareness is the key to influence, and our ability to get along with others. However, self-awareness means being aware of both the good and the bad. Some people avoid the bad, because of the way it makes them feel, and they don’t ever see the way for themselves to improve. Ignore your awareness at your peril.
Mark’s Daily Thought – Ideas from Mark Fritz to help you Get Ahead, Stay Ahead and Be Successful
Some people are really confused about what progress means, as they view it as continued activity. Real progress is about continued achievement, and achievement towards a clear target. It’s the difference between looking at life as a set of enjoyable activities or enjoyable achievements.
The Obvious?
This time from July 2006 and it’s a goodie even if I say so myself!
A friend of mine recently posted a new mail address to a large-ish list of his friends and acquaintances. In his post he wrote something which a number of us found funny and to which we “replied all” in the spirit of a little light hearted humour not doing anyone any real harm.
This then provoked a number of grumpy responses from people telling us how not to use “reply all” and asking to be removed from the list. The tone of these responses was that these people were somehow grown-ups who those of behaving childishly were distracting them from important things and that they held some sort of moral upper hand.
This is an attitude I encounter all of the time in talking to businesses. There are those who even react badly to the “social” in Social Computing. Mucking around is frowned upon and there is an assumption that “business like” behaviour is the most appropriate and the most effective.
However, in direct contrast, I am more convinced that this is one of the more insidious mindsets in the workplace and one that is significantly curtailing the effectiveness of business.
The collusion behind “we don’t do things like that around here” or “that is not the sort of thing we should be talking about in a work context” can be intimidatingly strong. And although it appears on the face of it to be a reasonable position to take when you think about it what are their motivations in saying these things? Is it really effective to curtail your conversations in the workplace to a very limited and closely controlled range of topics with which you are already familiar and comfortable? If you don’t get to find about people through their whimsicality, their passions and even their prejudices then how are you going to be able to establish enough trust to be able to work with them effectively? What are they so afraid of? Chaos? Anarchy?
In so many ways this coercive attempt to control others’ behaviour is more about maintaining power and control than it is to do with organisational effectiveness.
If the nutters with daft ideas, those who are prepared to banter and exchange their views and to “think different” get their way and make the status quo messy then maybe we would have to change and to change we would have to think and we don’t like doing that too much because we have been trained not to do that at work …..
If you get an e-mail from me that is pointless, unfunny or plain daft then rather than waste the time and energy it would take to try to change me why not just delete it and move on to the really, really important things I am sure you have to do!
Mark’s Daily Thought – Ideas from Mark Fritz to help you Get Ahead, Stay Ahead and Be Successful
Some leaders are not comfortable with competitiveness in their people, as they don’t really know how to control it. Strong leaders want it, as it means everyone is striving to get better, and they know that their role is to make sure the right behaviours are reinforced.
The Obvious?
I have never really been bothered about my age, and to be honest it is still not something I worry about, but there has been an interesting change as I approached my fiftieth birthday today. I guess it is what they call a mid life crisis. I have become much more aware of how finite things are. Things aren’t going to last forever.
This unavoidable fact may be obvious to the rest of you but it wasn’t to me. I kind of took things for granted – another cuddle from my kids, another sunset, another hike up a hill. But recently I have begun to be much more aware of the fact that I don’t have an unlimited supply of these things to enjoy. Who knows, I may even see a second half century, but in the meantime I am getting much better at taking the time to really be here while I still am!
Mark’s Daily Thought – Ideas from Mark Fritz to help you Get Ahead, Stay Ahead and Be Successful
Some people really treat a vision as a dream. They think of it as something in the future, and wouldn’t it be nice if I was living that dream. However, you have other people who see their vision in the present, and begin taking action as if they were already living the vision. Remember, our future is created from our present actions.
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Mark’s Daily Thought – Ideas from Mark Fritz to help you Get Ahead, Stay Ahead and Be Successful
Success in business is all about the people, and the start of every successful business is with the hiring of great people. That’s why the most important process in any company is the hiring process, and the most important skill for a leader is the ability to hire great people.
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