Want Business or Personal Growth? Challenge Your Assumptions!

Assumptions make our lives easier. That’s both good news and bad. As creatures of habit, we seek efficiency through the use of assumptions in lieu of active thought to drive most of our behaviors. With few exceptions, what we do in any given 24-hour period demands little conscious thought because we’ve developed habits that help us accomplish all sorts of things.

For instance, while driving (even if you’re doing the speed limit), it’s quite common to pull your foot off the gas pedal when you see a police car ahead on the side of the road. In that instant, it seems like your foot has a mind of its own! What really happened is that you incorporated an assumption – that getting a ticket is a bad thing — to replace the thinking component of the “stimulus-thought-response” chain of events. In this example, no doubt, the assumption — or habit of thought — serves you well (this is the good news).

Unfortunately, however, that’s often not the case (this is the bad news). In a business, assumptions might include any of the following statements or beliefs:

“That won’t work here.”

“Change is risky.”

“I’ve seen this situation before.”

“We’re better than the competition.”

While some of our assumptions are useful in preventing us from having to consciously figure out the mechanics each time we confront a familiar situation, many habits of thought keep us from stretching our capabilities and trying new, and inventive, and possibly better ideas or techniques. Just like when you see a police car, these assumptions work silently, but powerfully to impact your behaviors and the behaviors of those around you.

Welcome to the “black box” of business and the enemy of business growth. Most business leaders don’t even know that it exists; yet it contains the keys to our own potential, our organizations’ potential, and our ability to get more of what we really want. Assumptions drive thinking, thinking drives behavior, and behavior drives results.

In late 2005 FORTUNE Magazine published a cover story about Andy Grove, one of Intel’s founders and most accomplished leaders. In describing one of the key characteristics that made Grove so successful, author Richard S. Tedlow wrote “Forcibly adapting himself to a succession of new realities, [Grove] has left a trail of discarded assumptions in his wake.” Grove’s ability to challenge “conventional wisdom” (just a euphemism for assumptions) paved the way for a number of seminal decisions at Intel including their move in the mid 1980’s to exit the memory business and focus on processors, and their decision to spend millions on a ground-breaking branding campaign called “Intel Inside” to brand an internal component of a computer.

What made Grove different (and so successful at Intel) is that he actively sought ways to force himself to challenge his assumptions and beliefs – in effect continually pushing and expanding his comfort zone. It was the modus operandi of his personal growth and his ability to lead Intel so successfully for so long.

Can you identify the modus operandi for strategic growth in your organization? When is the last time you consciously pushed to expand your comfort zone – by definition making yourself and those surrounding you uncomfortable in the process? Can you find a way to regularly challenge your own assumptions and beliefs? If not, might it make sense to find someone who will?

For sure, assumptions make our lives easier and more comfortable. It’s up to you however, to decide what you’d like to do with them to drive growth, to make your organization more competitive, and to improve yourself personally.

Every Month A Million and the Daily Dose Of Good.

Determination and Success

How important is determination and drive for success? Drive is a common characteristic among successful people. The good news is that just like luck and success, drive is a continuum. There’s examples where people with minimal drive, but they enjoy what they do, experience great success. On the other end of the spectrum, you find ruthless obsession.

What if you aren’t naturally driven? Here again, there’s good news. You can adopt successful strategies. What you lack in personality, you can make up for in approach.

In this post I write about the role of drive and determination in success.

• Drive is the one common characteristic among successful people. The one thing all successful people share is drive and determination.
  
• Drive ranges from enjoyment to ruthless obsession. Drive can range from simply enjoying the path to what folks would consider “a little mad,” meaning a ruthless obsession for results.
  
• A desire for personal power. One cause of drive is a pursuit of personal power, or an extension of their personality.
  
• Enslaved by an idea. Some people become consumed by an idea. Their drive is fueled by the passion of bringing an idea to life.
  
• Determination to finish the job. Some people are fueled by a passion for finishing what they started. They can’t stand the idea of a leaving something half-finished.
  
• You don’t have to change your personality. If you’re not naturally driven, you don’t have to try to change your personality. Instead, adopt proven success strategies that characterize successful people.
  
• Adopt success strategies of successful people. You can adopt proven strategies such as becoming more single minded and focused, a strong sense of direction, don’t take no for an answer, and become better at saying what you don’t like.
  

What I’ve learned through experience is that while drive is important, you need to know what you’re trading. For example, try to find balance between your conviction and your connection, so you don’t burn bridges or leave a trail of dead bodies in your pursuit of results. Try to invest in your body, your relationships, and fun during the pursuit of your goals, so that you enjoy the process. Goals are a vehicle. They are a means to an end, but not the end themselves. Be careful not to compromise your values along your journey.

Drive and Determination is The One Common Characteristic of Successful People

Successful people are often very single-minded and determined. Indeed, it would be possible to pick this out as the one characteristic common to almost all successful people. It can take the form of drive: if you want something hard enough, you will get it. it can take the form of ruthlessness: let nothing stand between you and your goal. It can take the form of a strong sense of purpose. It can take the form of determination and persistence: accept failure only as a step on the path to success.

One Single Goal

Some people make big trade-offs in the pursuit of a single goal:

This type of determination comes close to fanaticism and what might be called ‘a little madness’. It implies a rather unnatural view of life, because one single goal becomes more important than any others. A person may be willing to sacrifice his wife, his children, his friends, his health, and even his life for this goal. At times the goal may seem very much like an obsession. At its extreme, obsession is a form of madness.

A Sense of Direction Urges Action

Having a direction helps somebody take action and gauge whether they are on track:

There are many advantages to powerful determination and a strong sense of direction. The sense of direction urges action. The sense of direction shapes the action. The sense of direction allows the value of the action to be assessed: has it got me nearer to my goal? The sense of direction allows all judgments and decisions to be made more easily: does this help me toward my goal or does this hinder me? Most people in their ordinary lives lack such a strong sense of value when taking a decision. Most people may have to take into account a soup of different factors such as family, health, enjoyment, career, etc., when making a decision. The strongly-success oriented person only takes into account one thing: the path to success.

Determination Ranges from Enjoyment to Obsession

Drive is a continuum:

As with luck there is, of course, a spectrum. At one end is the ruthless obsessed tyrant who could properly be called mad. At the other end of the spectrum is the person who enjoys what he or she is doing, enjoys his life and friends, and just seems to stumble into success (as with Nolan Bushnell, Norman Lear, or Sir Clive Sinclair). Readers may be surprised to find that most of the people in this book seem to fall into this second grouping.

Determination for Personal Power or Enslaved By an Idea

Some people are fueled by making an idea happen:

Determination and ruthlessness always seem to suggest a person who wants success and power for their own sake and as an extension of his or her personality. There is, however, another sort of obsession. This is when a person is enslaved by an idea. The person wants to see the idea work, wants to make it happen. Power, riches, and fame have virtually nothing to do with it. Determination can spring from this sort of obsession.

Determination to Finish the Job

Some people are compelled to finish what they started:

There is even a further sort of determination. This is where someone sets out to do something and takes the first few steps. There is then a determination to see things through, to finish that job. Once one block has been place on top of another, there is a compulsion to finish the building. This characteristic also becomes clear in some of the people mentioned in this book.

You Don’t Have to be Driven

Some people that aren’t naturally driven take a passive view on determination:

From a practical point of view it does matter whether we attribute success to a particular type of personality. Some people may feel that since their own personality is not ‘driven’ in this way, then there is little they can learn by reading about people who are so driven. Like the ‘luck’ explanation of success, this is defeatist and passive.

You Don’t Have to Change Your Personality

You don’t have to worry about changing your personality:

I would not want to get into an argument as to whether people can or cannot change their personalities (through awareness training, counseling, or environmental change). It is not easy for someone to become ruthless by just willing himself or herself to be ruthless … A reader can, however, try to become more single minded and more focused. Once a reader perceives that a strong sense of direction may be an ingredient for success, it is possible to do something about it (for instance, by dropping other projects).

Adopt Strategies to Improve Effectiveness

You can adopt strategies of people with determination and drive to improve your success:

A person who will not take ‘no’ for an answer and writes ten letters runs the danger of being a nuisance and a pest but may be more successful than the person who is turned off by first refusal. Such things may arise naturally from a personality or they may be adopted as strategy. You cannot will yourself to have a foul temper (even if this often seems to be most useful for success), but you can become much better at saying what you do not like. It may well be that having success-oriented characteristics by virtue of your personality is much more effective — nevertheless adopting some of them as deliberate strategies can also be valuable.

Every Month a Million and the Daily Dose Of Good