Running a business you are always tasked with how to get the best work for your customer in a timely manner and a reasonable cost. You balance getting great product out and a perfect product out. This applies to any company – product, service, retail, restaurant. It’s not something you set it and forget it. The world changes and evolves as do the people in it, but no matter the struggles you are always managing to get the balance within an acceptable range, because ultimately the success of the company depends on that balance. If we want things perfect then we don’t move tasks forward and if we don’t move tasks forward then we don’t make them better and we don’t accomplish our goals…ultimately we don’t get shit done.
What I mean by that is success occurs because of the nature of completing tasks in order to accomplish goals. No matter what those goals are it’s likely you are completing repetitive tasks over and over again and doing them in a timely manner. How well you do those task and how timely can determine how much success you have. Developing a vaccine, well you are going to perform tests over and over again so you can bring a safe product to market that has big impacts, but the development itself is quite repetitive. Developing Renewable Energy, well again you are going to go through the same repetitive tasks to create energy delivery. Building an app, again same process over and over until you finally deliver the next Angry Birds. Selling jewelry, the jewelry may change, but ultimately running a successful store depends on doing the small things right day in and day out. Same goes for an ad agency. The final creative product might be a great thirty second spot, but the process to get that spot and to have it advertised in the right places, well that is accomplished through small tasks completed in a timely manner to not only have the ad delivered, but to have an impact on our client’s business (i.e. customers and sales). All of these things not only require focus on accomplishing the small things to achieve your goal, but they rely on the goal being accomplished timely…getting shit done.
I always try to be cognizant of what my goal is, or what needs to be accomplished as this is what drives success. This week however, I had several instances that seemed to distract me from that early in the week and made me think about how we all need to be reminded and held accountable. The short version is I was working with several well educated, highly experienced professionals on some issues that needed resolved. Everyone working together was very good at their chosen field. My role is often making sure we stay focused on what it is we need, accomplish what we are after and ensure we do a great job. Well, about halfway through the week I realized that we were doing a good job of laying out the details, what those mean and what could happen, but you know what we weren’t doing…we weren’t getting shit done. Maybe I was distracted or just lulled into complacency, but I finally woke up and drew a line with this crew. The end goal was we needed to make a decision and both parties involved wanted to make this happen by week’s end, so, we needed to stop talking and get pen to paper and move things forward. I am sure my name was taken in vain a few times this week, but today is Friday and I now fully expect us to have accomplished our goal by the end of the day.
Accomplishing tasks and goals isn’t rocket science and it may not even be highly technical, but it is important in achieving success, no matter what your business or activity. It’s also something we should be continuously working on and cognizant of in order to achieve desired results. The Bottom Line is success doesn’t just happen and it doesn’t just happen because we work hard, Success happens because you understand the goal of your work and you work hard to get shit done.