by JimRaffel on December 18, 2010
Your toughest trials will come right before your biggest breakthroughs.
When the road seems roughest.
When the darkness seems darker than ever before.
When your patience has expired.
When you feel most alone and defeated.
…but if you have been doing the right things like:
Only engaging in those actions that bring you closer to not further from your goals.
Living within your means.
Helping others before yourself.
Hanging onto hope and faith even if by the tinniest of threads.
Then, these are the moments that immediately proceed your greatest breakthroughs in life and in business.
Stay your course if you know in your heart it’s the right one. Yes, make minor adjustments to your route to get around the tough trials but only for the purpose of achieving your ever growing breakthroughs.
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by JimRaffel on October 18, 2010
Because change is a constant, it makes sense to spend time understanding the process and harnessing how it happens, with the idea being to arrive at the best possible outcome. Sometimes methodical incremental change will make sense. At other times breakthrough change could be required to remain a viable and competitive business entity.
Incremental. You might, for example, know that by adding one more traditional sales person your sales will increase by some historically valid percentage. Normally, incremental change is supported by historic evidence and is quite likely to work if you follow a prescribed procedure. Please don’t misunderstand, I see nothing wrong with a near “sure thing” path to growth. Sometimes, in fact, it’s the right answer.
Breakthrough. Sometimes so much is changing in your business that traditional methods are not the “sure thing” they used to be. Either that or competitive pressures may demand a dramatic change in existing cost or quality structures. Large organizations often have Continuous Improvement departments staffed with six sigma black belts to help facilitate these types of changes. A breakthrough change in sales might be the replacement of your traditional sales force with an online purchasing and support model. There is nothing incremental about that kind of change.
Thinking can be incremental or breakthrough as well.
Recently I realized that the type of company ColorMetrix has become is quite different than the company it was three years ago. Many of the actual changes that brought me to this realization occurred incrementally. We used to be a color software and technology company. We have become the verified color strategy company. A company that builds color communities throughout the workflow and across the supply chain utilizing software and technology.
That’s a breakthrough change in the way I think of myself and my company. See how arriving at that breakthrough in thinking might change how I present myself to future potential customers?
How about you? What are your thoughts on the subject?
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