Best Advice: Always Look Forward

In this series, professionals share the words of wisdom that made all the difference in their lives. Follow the stories here and write your own (please include the hashtag #BestAdvice in the body of your post).

The best advice I’ve ever received was from the two people that I admire most in the world: my parents. Growing up in West Virginia, my mom and dad were both doctors. They spent their life’s work focused on keeping their patients – our community — healthy. My mom taught me to connect emotionally and how to build relationships based on trust. My dad showed me how critical it is to play out the game and to separate the symptoms from the underlying challenge or illness. They often told me how important it is to focus on the long-term, and for them, this was the health of their patients. All of these insights taught me a lot about running a company.

My parents always encouraged behaviors that would have lifelong benefits for their patients – looking out not one or two years, but five, 10 or 15 years. This same mentality is very necessary in today’s business environment, where staying ahead of the curve is the only way to maintain success. Throughout history, businesses have faced risky environments, whether economic, technological or both, and the companies that lean forward into the challenge and have the ability to disrupt ahead of their peers are the ones that make it through on the other end.

Leaders must have the courage to do whatever it takes to achieve their long-term strategy and vision, just as my parents would have done to heal a patient. This means always keeping your finger on the pulse and never doing what’s working now for too long — complacency is the enemy. This mindset has served us very well at Cisco and has allowed us to out-live many of our peers. For instance, when we began working on the Internet of Everything (IoE) more than seven years ago, the market wasn’t ready for it and many didn’t understand. But we had a vision and knew the implications the Internet of Everything would have for just about everything and had the courage to keep going. Now we’ve seen a tremendous up-tick in interest and adoption of the Internet of Everything. As we see it come to life, it will transform industries, governments and the way we live.

This advice influences me when I talk with young entrepreneurs. It’s easy to get caught up in what’s exciting right now, instead of what will be exciting tomorrow. But the reality is that in today’s environment of mass disruption, companies have to find ways to innovate faster than ever before to succeed and thrive. Forty percent of my peers, in my opinion, will not exist in a meaningful way in 10 years — Cisco could be one of them if we don’t continue to innovate – and out of 100 startups, less than 10 will be relevant three to five years from now. The ones that win will have a clear understanding of both their short-term and long-term differentiation. Entrepreneurs must have the foresight to anticipate market transitions before they happen and innovate for the customer of the future.

So, whether you’re looking to start a company from the ground up, or bring a business to the next-level, ask yourself: do you have the courage to disrupt yourself? It’s difficult to do, but necessary to stay ahead of the competition and catch the market transitions right.