Footprints on the Mountainside

Recently, I helped conduct a training programme aimed at looking at existing entrepreneurship and building on it in a team of managers in a leading bank. What struck me was the extreme efficiency of the team. They were performing at peak, yet there was little excitement in the group.

As the programme evolved, and we looked at different ways of understanding the preferences and choices of the team, it became increasingly clear that there were dreams and highly charged emotions bottled up in the group. Their perception of their working boundaries was of one that didn’t allow for mistakes, and their mode of operations was SAFE. While thier high efficiency ensured sustained performance, the monotony was literally strangling the life-giving forces in this vertical.

An incredible point in this programme came toward the end, where one of their seniors visited briefly, and during one of his conversations with the group, put it bluntly - “business is about going with your gut. There aren’t always logical explanations and guarantees. Sometimes you do things because you want to do them.”

Looking at this guy as he spoke was an experience of freshness, lightness and excitement about the work. There was none of the heavy air of confinement and no second-guesses about results. Just a happy acceptance of sheer temptation of certain exciting possibilities and a willingness to invest image and effort into making them work.

Unsaid at that time, I registered what I found different about this happy man who actually had far more responsibilities than the others - this was a businessman, not a manager.

I extend this philosophy to all I do in my life - if it doesn’t excite me, my investment of effort is not going to satisfy me, no matter what it is. Some things I may do out of necessity, but it is important not to lose track of priorities - it is the excitement where my focus needs to be.

When I work with small businesses, it is one of the greatest challenges to find such engagement. The fear of failure suffocates and overcomes all the charm of getting into it in the first place. The key is to know that failure will happen, but it is the opportunity that we need to keep our sights on.

Ownership isn’t only about owning responsibility and protecting. Ownership is also the commitment to take things ahead because it is the owner’s dream.

These days, more and more of my friends seem to turn to me for guidance and help with websites. Not just friends, even places I work for. For example, ihave recently joined Resonate Consulting on a parttime basis, and they are unhappy with their current web hosting providers and wish to move. They are some of the most talented Organization Development Consultants in India, and their site looks nice, but has little functionality and costs a bomb. We are still struggling to see how we can add simple things like a blog.

Now, at the risk of sounding really obvious, it is easier to take some time and research and choose a good hosting provider. Really, there IS no excuse. It is far more inconvenient after having a site somewhere to shift hosting providers.

There are plenty of service providers out there that are very good, and websites that can provide comparisons, tips and reviews on the different web hosting available. This site can prove a good resource in gaining information and reviews about the different hosting providers out there and the kind of services and budgets you can expect. For example, what is the best choice for blog hosting, or if you are on a budget, or for heavy traffic, and so on. You wouldn’t buy a dress without checking it out, would you? So do you really want to buy the platform for your image without research?