Great Things Happen When Confidence and Capitalism Collide
In this time of bad financial news, high energy costs, record deficits and global turmoil, it’s exciting to meet people that see opportunities in the headlines. I had the great fortune to meet someone recently that has the right attitude about making lemonade out of the bumper crop of lemons we are experiencing this year.
This individual has a self-stated mission of seeing the U.S. energy independent from foreign oil producers, and has the confidence, resources and conviction needed to just possibly pull it off (or at least make a big difference). He’s investing heavily in all-things renewable, and he has no qualms about the fact that he will make a lot of money along the way to helping us become energy independent. Mission, vision and a tidy profit all at the same time. Ayn Rand would be proud.
There are more than a few leadership lessons that I take away from meeting and listening to someone very confidently talking about knocking down regulatory walls at the same time he is helping solve huge engineering and infrastructure challenges. What might appear as insurmountable barriers to many are just problems to be solved and opportunities waiting to be realized. It would be easy to listen to this type of talk and think of the top 100 reasons that come to mind why it will never work. The hard job is to jump over to his side of the fence and see the only logical outcome: success!
Corporate offices are filled with Devil’s Advocates, Naysayers and Professional Critics. These are the people that take someone’s seed of a vision and work hard to ensure that it is crushed into oblivion to serve as more grist for the big corporate mill. Some of the best-educated, smartest people you will ever meet fill these roles. They are so smart, that they easily see everything that can go wrong in pursuit of a vision. My advice: do yourself a favor and fire these people and replace them with individuals that are excited by the vision and singularly focused on helping realize it. You’ll be happy you did.
Coping Strategies for the Project Manager Facing an Executive Mandate on Schedule
One of the most common challenges for Project Managers and Engineering teams in new product development organizations is balancing the executive "time to market" mandate with good project estimation and risk analysis techniques. Many a project has misfired after a CEO or top management group has boldly proclaimed to corporate stakeholders that, "Product X will be to market by (insert your aggressive date here).
-
Chosen by Guy Kawasaki's Alltop.com as a top site in the Leadership category.
Podcast
Available Now!
Practical Lessons
e-book
e-book-Leadership and the Project Manager - Developing the Skills that Fuel High Performance
