As a leader, one has to keep a sharp edge at all times. The day-in, day-out struggle of getting your organization moving forward can wear down your edge. After a while, you tend to get dull, as does your thinking. So, how do you keep that sharpness? There are many ways to do it. Today, I will suggest one: find a new challenge to focus on during your off time. It can be related to what you do or not, as long as it is somewhat removed from the daily issues you deal with.
For example, if you work in the insurance industry, you already spend quite a lot of time focusing on risk, projections, HR, customer turn-over, etc. Few people in the insurance industry deal with every type of insurance segment. More likely, they deal with a niche: autos, business, residential, shipping, legal or some other segment. If you deal with auto insurance, create a challenge to think about in, say, shipping insurance issues. You can also take on a challenge about something complete unrelated to insurance. Think about traffic issues in your neighborhood, city, region, state, etc. Think about solid waste disposal issues. Take your pick. Read a magazine in an unrelated discipline: waste disposal, accounting, shopping malls, dental practice, retirement communities, marine construction or any random industry. Pick the current topic in the industry and set a challenge to come up with a solution to some small part of that topic.
Currently, I have my own challenge. I picked economic development. It's not my field directly, but it touches on some things that interest me. Specifically, I picked the topic of creating home-grown industries in the area where I live.
I did some quick research and started looking at what strengths we have: labor with a wide variety of skills but with more on the lower skills level; access to good shipping and international ports; good natural resources within a couple of days' shipping; university support centers; some governmental and private investment opportunities; and training support. I looked at what industries we had in the past and what industries we have now. I did a cursory match of all of these and came up with furniture building as my first result. It does not require great capital investments and is a minimal skills level industry. We have a strong forestry industry nearby. The market may be the biggest challenge, but we need to focus on a niche we can target. It is also an industry that can be developed in small or even cottage-style plants, as opposed to a car factory that needs millions in capital, equipment, land, suppliers and labor.
I attack the problem during my spare moments: driving, waiting at someone's office, early in the morning, doing yard work, etc. Will I solve this problem? Maybe. I might come up with some ideas that I can forward to someone else who might be able to do something with it. Maybe not. So, what does it do for me? It keeps me thinking and stretching my capabilities. It reinforces that the analytical skills I use for my regular job do not get dull. It gives me a break from the routine. It gives me new perspectives–always a welcome dose of renewal.
I will work on this for a while and put it away. Later, I will come up with another challenge and look at that for a while. What I bring back to my regular job, every time I do this, is a new urge to improve what I am doing there.
No comments:
Post a Comment