How my beliefs intersect with my work…

What we believe defines who we are. No one would disagree with this concept. While this blog is intended to be a site for my thoughts as they pertain to what I do for a living – this time I want to lay out the fundmentals of what I believe. I for one don’t want to be any different at work then I am at home or at anywhere else. So my beliefs must be consistent and foundational wherever I am.

So what do I believe? Here goes:

• I believe there is one eternal standard of truth in the universe and that logic dictates there can only be one truth.
• I believe everyone has the right to search for truth.
• I believe in total respect for each individual and their search for truth.
• I believe that we can disagree with each other while still respecting each other and robustly discussing our beliefs.
• I believe that life is a journey and that the way you interact with others on that journey is of paramount importance.
• I believe that we live in a created universe and that we were created to enjoy a fulfilled and fulfilling life of shared service and interaction with each other.
• I believe that the Creator is God as expressed and understood through the Bible.
• I believe that the only way to know God is to believe in His Son Jesus who died on a cross outside Jerusalem almost 2000 years ago and was raised from the dead 3 days later.
• I believe that my daily interaction with Jesus through the Holy Spirit is the most important thing I do and that this interaction affects everything else I do.
• I believe that everyone is created with a purpose and a calling in life and is worthy of love and respect – regardless of what they have done or are doing.
• I believe each one of us is ultimately accountable for our own actions and the impact that they have on others and we should all take responsibility for this.
• I believe that nothing in life is better than worshipping God for who He is and out of that attitude then serving others.

A lot of big statements. Quite possibly controversial. No doubt some people will not like them and violently disagree. But that is ok and their absolute right to freedom of choice – God’s gift to us all.

The Power of Momentum

With the start of the new year, I have been reading a lot of recent commentary of “fresh ideas” and a “new approach” to tackling work issues and the different challenges that we all face. It is impressive to see the amount of constructive thought that is available to us all and the numerous different frameworks and models we can leverage off.

Having said that, I suspect that we are perhaps suffering from the “too much of a good thing” syndrome. What do I mean by this? Let’s play out a simple scenario that confronts most of us on a monthly if not weekly basis in our daily working lives. A problem or situation arises where we are challenged by our peers or superiors to come up with an innovative or fresh approach to implementing change in some way. So far, so good.

We turn to our network, grab the latest “great” book or jump on the web to look at our favourite page of tips and resources for innovative thinkers. We analyse the situation and come up with a framework for addressing it that should deliver on the objectives. This gets presented in the form of a simple Business Case and we get the greenlight. Implementation commences.

From here on in, success or failure will be determined by any number of specifics that will have been directly determined by the unique nature of the original situation. I don’t want to delve into that here. Rather, I want to look at what happens after the process is complete. Regardless of failure or success, I suspect that sometimes we move on from our process too quickly. Sure – if it failed totally then something needs to be changed.

However – the dangers of our “instant” society can too readily rise to the surface. Under pressure to be creative and innovative, it is easy to throw out everything that we have done and go for the next “great” idea or the “blank” sheet approach. This is where the power of momentum can be completely lost.

Sometimes, we need to break our approach to what we are doing down to a very micro level. We need to find small, repeatable steps at which over time we can excel. From there, we can harness the power of momentum. Humans mostly are lovers of routine – if we can do the same thing over and over and get better each time – we may just find that we end up mastering a process or implementing change in a way that really makes a difference.

I know this is a very high level presentation of this idea but I think the key point here is – don’t give up on what you are doing too quickly. Make sure you really understand what you are trying to do and then repeat it – over and over again. This will tap into the power of momentum and you may be amazed at the results!