Discovering Our Way to Greatness

Stop, stop, stop! Take a step back and ask yourself this question. Are you or your company on its way to Greatness? Sometimes life takes over and we just go through the motions of daily routine without taking a step back to think about where we are going. I came across this great quote which really put things into perspective.

Only dead fish go with the flow! - Andy Hunt

I have seen lots of companies and employees just go with the flow until the current course of action comes to a natural conclusion, and always that conclusion ends in failure. I have seen people become powerless to change the current trajectory they are on, and they just go with the flow day in and day out. Most of the time people do not even realize that they are on a path to failure. This is not the way to discovering the way to greatness. Each and every one of us can discover our way to greatness in whatever we do. I share some of my insights that I have discovered on our journey to greatness.

Four things we must do to discover greatness in life or at work

1. Getting smarter faster - Learning curve
2. Seeing failure in operations and execution - Little things matter
3. Failing early, often, and forward - Innovation
4. Crossing the rubicon - Commitment to becoming great

Getting smarter faster: It is all about the learning curve. If the learning curve is steep, you are more likely to win and win often. If the learning curve is shallow, you are most likely on a path to fail or get beaten by your competition. Learning how to get smarter faster matters a lot. It is essential to create a shorter learning cycle so the accumulation of knowledge leads to giant leaps in knowledge.

Seeing failure in operations and execution: Catastrophic failure does not occur out of the blue. There are many many warning signs along the way that gets ignored or overlooked. Paying attention to these warning signs and fixing them is essential as they provide opportunities to learn so they don't get repeated and accumulated over time.

As a company experiences rapid growth, small problems are ignored. We compromise quality for speed of execution to maintain operational goals. This mindset allows small problems to accumulate that leads to bigger issues later on. For example one customer having a bad experience is considered as cost of doing business when u have millions of customers. One customer seems insignificant, but over time these small issues lead to catastrophic failures.

Failing early, often, and forward: Failure is the cornerstone of innovation. If we don't fail we don't learn. Failing early and often allows us to have a shorter learning cycle where we accumulate knowledge that leads to major breakthroughs and allows us to innovate. Not all failures should be treated equal. Intelligent failures at the frontier of innovation is what we should seek to achieve.

Crossing the rubicon: In order to discover our way to greatness, we must irrevocably commit to a course of action that will lead us on a journey of discovery, learning and growth. We need to embrace the "learning leadership" style in order to truly discover greatness. We MUST eliminate the "compliance leadership" style that is more suited to maintaining status quo than discovering a path towards greatness.

Key traits of "Learning Leadership"

• Seeing and solving problems during planning and practice.
• Leading the “learning” of the organization.
• Rapidly accelerating the learning curve of the organization by increasing the frequency of the feedback loop.
• Setting ambitious goals and fostering innovation.

Greatness is a lot of small things done well day after day

Learning leadership is essential to discovering greatness. Doing small things well on a daily basis is the secret to innovation, and disruption in your organization so you can create the next Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, or Facebook.

Dhanush Hetti - People Leader & CTO