the simplicity of success

Success is simple. It is doing the same things over and over again. In other words, success is a habit of being focused on what you want to achieve.

But if success is really that simple, then what is it that can make it seem so elusive or difficult?

Simply put, we do.

For example, have you ever noticed how many of the best and most successful business ideas are simple? Often, we think we know best and we can sometimes find ourselves in a trap where we think that we have been there, done that, and know it all. At other times, in order to keep ourselves feeling important and knowledgeable, we complicate matters. We think that it can’t be that easy” We forget our focus.

Focus is simple. What is it that you really want to achieve?

A way in which we can most easily retain our focus is to ask ourselves quality questions. Our minds are effectively trained to answer questions. Hence the quality of the results that we get lies in the quality of the questions that we ask ourselves. Questions focus the mind. (You can experiment with this. During a conversation, instead of providing an answer, ask a question, and see how this can immediately change the focus of the conversation. Then ask a different question and see how the focus changes again).

I used to work in an investment bank. Our operations and accounting system was to be replaced, and a new system was proposed. The trouble was that the new system couldn’t do what we needed - to provide adequate management and accounting information - except with extensive programming and re-writing. A meeting was called and concerns raised. Could another system be considered that would more adequately and readily deliver what was required? Well, yes, there was another system with a better fit but this was turned down because it didn’t fit as well with the firm’s chosen IT architecture. So the project went ahead, costing the company more than £50 million. Less than five years later, the new system is now being replaced – because it does not deliver what is required of it. Complicated manual work-arounds didn’t cut it.

You see, the question that was asked was, "Which system best fits with our proposed IT architecture?" and then, "Because it doesn’t give us what we really need, can we work around what can’t be properly programmed with manual systems?" The project went ahead on that basis.

A better set of questions would have been, "What do we want to achieve by implementing a new system? What does success in relation to this new system mean?" As I see it, the chosen IT architecture was secondary to the more basic question of the underlying objectives for implementing the new system in the first place.

There is value in knowledge and experience. And its real value lies in the openness and simplicity with which it is used, to apply it to what is at hand.

That is why GE has such a simple vision statement – "Number One or Number Two". Similarly, Bill Gates with, "A PC in every home".

Keep things simple and it provides a guiding light on which to retain your focus and base your decisions.

Action Points

1. Before you delve into the next segment of your day, ask yourself the simple question, "What do I want to achieve today?"

Then apply this again, this time to each task, each day, each hour, each conversation, each meeting, each phone call, each email, each piece of paper – you get the idea. Then notice what thoughts come up. What changed as a result of first asking this question?

Quote

"All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten. ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate-school mountain, but there in the sandpile at Sunday School. These are the things I learned:

Share everything.
Play fair.
Don't hit people.
Put things back where you found them.
Clean up your own mess.
Don't take things that aren't yours.
Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.
Wash your hands before you eat.
Flush.
Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
Take a nap every afternoon.
When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.
Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the styrofoam cup: The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.

And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK.

Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.

Take any of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or your government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm. Think what a better world it would be if all - the whole world - had cookies and milk about three o'clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess.

And it is still true, no matter how old you are - when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together."

by Robert Fulghum

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