| FROM OUR EXPERIENCE |
|
| Personal passions become business lessons
|
|
 |
Tuesday, August 5th 2008, 05:00 AM
Looking upwards all I can see above us is pitch dark. The
Western Breach wall of Kilimanjaro seems endless in the darkness preceding dawn.
We’ve been climbing the steep slope for over two hours and I can barely feel
my fingers, and the rucksack feels heavier and heavier on my back while I struggle
to breathe the oxygen poor air. Will we make it to the summit?
Friday, September 26th 2008, 02:00 PM
It’s been an hour since I’m playing with the numbers in the excel sheet, numbers
that are supposed to help me make a financially sound decision. It’s the deadline
for a "go - no go" decision on a project. MY project! Although the numbers are
supposed to be very clear and mathematic, the excel cells are of no help. What
do we risk if we choose to go forward, what do we lose if we stop now?
Although the moments seem to be very different, I felt the same type of excitement in both, the pressure to make a decision, to evaluate the risk of going forward or turning back. Climbing a mountain has much in common with completing a project!
To make it clear from the start, I am not a mountaineer. I climb mountains for my personal pleasure, and with the desire to challenge my limits. These are the same motivations I try to find in professional projects. I actively search new challenging projects, which will take me out of my comfort zone, and will force me to learn. Same as on the mountain, the personal lessons help me successfully accomplish my projects:
1. Your vision and objectives will make the difference!
What kind of project do you want, how will you accomplish it, how will it contribute to your development and that of your team? These are questions we often forget to ask ourselves at the job, because we have learnt to be reactive and to be satisfied with what we are offered. We use excuses like "my manager assigned me to this project", "the task is part of my responsibilities" and so we measure our success by standards imposed from the outside. The mountain forced me to step out of this paradigm! All of a sudden I was on new ground, where no one imposed anything on me and where I had to choose the measure of my own success!
I searched my limits and I looked for a challenge right above them, so that I could raise the bar higher. Every year a few thousands trekkers attempt to climb Kilimanjaro on the normal route, due to the relatively low difficulty, the challenge coming from the high altitude (5895 m).
To avoid the crowd we chose a route labeled as "difficult", on which we were basically the only team right until the summit day. We discovered the actual difficulty was not that high, the only passages that gave us a thrill were just on the summit push. When we came down on the normal route and saw the gentle slope, full of dust, I felt a deep satisfaction thinking we had the courage to choose the more difficult ascent. We would have made it to the summit in both cases, but I know I pushed my limits further by refusing to settle for "an ordinary success"!
2. Planning is the key to success!
Maybe climbing a mountain doesn’t seem to need all that planning: you go, you climb, you come down, and it’s over! Which is perfectly true for a one day trip to Piatra Craiului? But when you will want to try something else, you need a rigorous plan. The mountain is unforgiving and lack of preparation will increase your risks exponentially. At 5000 m altitude the oxygen level is half the one in Bucharest. How many days should you stay on the route to allow your body to acclimatize? How will you transport food for these days? What type of gear will you need for the altitude/temperature/technical difficulty you will meet? We spent several months before leaving for Kilimanjaro arranging all the details, making lists with the equipment we’ll need, searching for optimal transport options, selecting the gear according to weight and screening local operators to provide the logistics. They are essential to the project’s success, having significant influence on the costs and also on an efficient organization (they helped with the mountain taxes, organizing the food and porters and we also used them to hire a guide – whom we would have gladly skipped, but the Tanzanian government imposes that each team goes with an authorized guide).
Behind every successful project lies a well executed plan. Tom Peters claims that "Execution IS strategy", and I tend to agree with him. Failing to complete a project because of lack of preparation is a huge waste of time, energy and money. Even when the project itself is a one day event, the time you invest in planning and preparing can be several months!
3. Every person in the team counts!
Some of us have "glamorous" jobs, we work in sales and tell stories of the last contracts we signed, we are PR persons and give interviews or we are trainers and hold courses in front of participants. Others have "normal" jobs, we work in accounting, human resources, finance, etc. But the truth is that each of us has its unique individual contribution to success. Not everybody will go to the summit, and not everybody will close deals with clients! But these successes are the result of a team performance equation.
I remember in Kilimanjaro we had trouble with the food. Your appetite diminishes
with altitude, and if you climb too fast you risk developing altitude sickness,
with effects like vomiting. This is very unpleasant, especially when you can
barely swallow a few spoons of food and your body needs all the energy it can
get. Therefore Elia, our team’s cook, was the one with a major influence on our physical condition. The care he had for us and the carbohydrate rich food (carbs are more easily digested than proteins and fat) kept us firm for the ascent. For me, he was the team member who made the difference!
"We live in a Brand You world" adds Tom Peters. If you are a project manager, think what kind of people you want in your team. If you are a team member, think what you want to be known for, what is your added value and put them into practice.
As a conclusion, whatever your personal passion is, whether you play football or you go shopping, there are connections with business life. It’s important to observe them, extract valuable lessons and apply what you have learnt at the job. In the end, what’s really important is to make every experience, personal or professional, count. In doing this I’m inspired by Picasso’s words "I
am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it!"
Ioana Molnar
Marketing Manager |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Recommend this newsletter to a friend
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Human Invest is a Premier League company in the arena of training and
organizational development consultancy services, present on the Romanian market since 1998.
We are recognized for conceiving and implementing programs which offer managers an authentic experience towards improving their leadership
performances, and thus we support companies in becoming more and more engaged in delivering excellent services for their clients.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
