Today marks one month since my self-surrender. Time has both went slowly and somewhat fast at the same time. At the time it seems to move fairly slow, yet I look back and a month has already gone by. More on that in a future blog. Today I am finishing my 4th Cornerstone, Tenacity.
Tenacity
One of the most important cornerstones is indeed Tenacity. Busines is HARD, very hard, particularly over time. Things happen that will frustrate, challenge, and overall impede not only the growth of the company, but at times even the sustainability of a company. That is where Tenacity comes in. You have to have a Rocky Balboa attitude – if you get knocked down, get up and keep fighting. When you run into a wall, you have to find a way to get to the other side – climb, dig, go around, go through – something – but get to the other side.
It is also important to stay calm during times of unrest – Yes, it is easier said than done, I know. If you can remain calm however, many times you can find opportunity in the changing dynamics. You have to force yourself to stand back and look at the issue in a different way. How can you adjust your business or the situation to give you a competitive advantage?
One example like this I learned very early on in my career. I was on a small team designing one fo the first single use safety lancets used by nurses to obtain a drop of blood from a peron’s finger. This was back in the late 80’s when AIDs and Hepatitis were starting to proliferate. At the time, most non-safety devices came with 2 separate caps that controlled the depth of puncture – one shallow and one deep. Our prototype safety lancet design came preassembled using two parts. The lancet portion had a twist cap that protected the sterile needle and was removed just prior to use. The challenge we had in the development stage was that in order to automatically assemble the device, the cap portion that went on the finger had to be key shaped. This meant that depending on the rotational position of th cap compared to the edge of the finger, the depth of puncture would vary. At the time we were thinking that we would need two SKU’s (stock keeping units) – one shallow and one deep, which obviously was more complicated from a logistics perspective.
The team was struggling with how to deal with the variability. We hit a wall. One day I found a way to the other side of the wall. I looked at my engineer mentor and said “this thing is variable.” He said, “yeah, that’s the problem.” I looked at him and said, “No, that’s the solution.” It took him a second and then he got a huge smile on his face and said, “Damn, you’re right. Not bad for a Boilermaker.” So we only needed one SKU instead of two, and by instructing users to turn the device 90 degrees from shallow to deep, we had what was actually an elegant solution to the perceived problem. We didn’t give up – we were Tenacious! We ended up launching that product under budget and earlier than scheduled, an unheard of accomplishment in that organization. But that is a story for another time.
Cornerstone Summary
These particular four cornerstones may not work well for every organization – but I assert that these or some derivation of these, if truly embraced by the organization, can be very successful building blocks of a culture. I’ve seen it and lived it.