Ladders… bridges… symbolism today.

Many of us act as different forms of structure throughout a given day.  Whether it’s a ladder, a bridge, an electrical conduit, the list is endless.  Whatever I do, whether it’s Executive Coaching, Team Development, Organizational Consulting or Workshops, I am an instrument in some way, a bridge for the participants to get them somewhere, somehow.

I recently had a dear friend in from Los Angeles and somehow we got to talking about traveling (he’d stopped in NYC on the way back from Europe) and the variety of bridges you see throughout the world.  I was immediately jarred by the thought of my experience earlier in the year crossing the Sunshine Skyway Bridge over Tampa, the 5.5 mile length bridge.  Then I got busy online and found the Arsenal Bridge in Rock Island, Illinois that can rotate 360?.  Wow, there is such a variety. 

As someone who’s often referred to as a ‘bridge’ for companies and their employees, I loved the conversation and emphasis on details and the ways in which the details of architecture, structure, and usability are relevant to the landscape of the specific environment.  The same is true of both large and small businesses.  Employee development and strategy need to be built according to the environment in which they exist.  In thinking about the type of bridge you need, understand what types of elements contribute to your company environment:

• Company culture, mission, and goals
• Playing to employee’s skills & strengths
• Action steps that improve business functions

This year I participated in a Success Academy program in New York where a variety of speakers dispelled their unique ability at being a bridge in a particular way.  I spoke about utilizing unique skills and focused on how maximizing your strengths and the strength of your company impacts those around you and ultimately impacts success.  Building relationships is essential to success and how we build relationships is very much relevant to who we are building them with, and thus, what we need to build.  The particular road followed, the particular bridge, the process taken.  Check out a segment of my presentation on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEMQmgmxkrs&feature=channel

Want more?  Let me know:  erivera@linesofexcellence.com

Fact: according to entrepreneur.com “8.7 percent of job seekers gained employment by starting their own businesses in second quarter 2009.”

Entrepreneurs in residence are springing up on both coasts (and in the middle), paying innovative thinkers to do just that, sit and think, with the hopes of cashing in on creative and innovative ideas that can change the world (really, think Google). And in the not so different world of film, a bicoastal and international production, The Hurt Locker, seems to have taken some folks by surprise as the winner for Oscar’s Best Picture – in comparison to the more obvious modern template for creativity, Avatar, which seemed to be the likely contender. But the win shows that creativity is multi-faceted, and flexibility with innovation is not necessarily in the form of modern creation, but sometimes grounded emphatically in the use of traditional art. The Hollywood Reporter’s Elizabeth Guider writes: “In the end, and despite opening the competition to 10 contenders, the Academy’s decision might have come down to that reflex preference for art over commerce or to its sense of purpose in rewarding art in an increasingly corporate, commercially driven film industry.”

At the 2009 TED Conference when talking about creativity and educating our youth to embrace and develop such, Sir Ken Robinson said “If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.” Yet, in our risk adverse economy, being ‘wrong’ sounds like a scary proposition. So then, how do we get it right? How do we make it okay to be wrong, yet be creative? To begin with, we use past knowledge and experience as a springboard for understanding ways in which we need to replicate or change where we’re going. And then, we research, evaluate, and apply.

As I head to Los Angeles next week to begin filming a podcast series on successfully innovative and creative teams, I will keep aversion out of my mind and mistakes on my radar.

“Experience is the name that everyone gives to their mistakes.” – Oscar Wilde

• Attract teams that want to collaborate
• Encourage creativity within yourself and others
• Identify team members who are flexible and think outside the box
• Problem solve effectively instead of in a reactionary manner
• Encourage people to want to be on your team and help you work towards goals
• Harness the entrepreneurial spirit that anything is possible as long as you work at it
• Work as hard as possible, knowing that eventually your investments of time, energy, and money will pay off

And if you’re still having a hard time imagining it all in a positive light, do some soul searching with the following examples:

Success is being a Google executive and despite a ruling sentencing a few of them to 6 months in prison for violating Italian privacy laws, knowing it’s an unfair and unjust ruling and actually serving the sentence will never come to fruition, and instead using your team to review global standards on privacy is a much more effective use of 6 months.

Success is being Mark Burnett & Mike Darnell and believing in your product so strongly that you know that despite an FCC investigation, your idea for a game show that highlights smartness and acquired knowledge in children is a great contribution to family programming and, with successful team development, will eventually be able to shine as a wonderful example of a successful game show idea.

Success is being Tachi Yamada, M.D., President of the Global Health Program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and acknowledging that the incredibly difficult journey of arriving from Japan to attend boarding school in the US is what has shaped him as a person and made him flexible and ‘open to challenges’ in ways he approaches life and business, and has contributed to the model of how he hires successful members of his team.

Success is believing in success, even if it takes a little longer than originally planned.

I don’t know about you, but at the end of the day, Tiger is still the golf genius child-protégé he was to me a few months before all the scandal. Really, how many of us actually care about his ‘issues’ with remaining loyal to his wife. I know, many of you are probably aghast at what I (a woman!) am saying right now. However, the truth is the truth. We’re not mad at his recent apology because we think he hasn’t suffered enough for his wrongdoing, we’re mad because deep in the depths of our psyche we know that once he gets back to focusing on the game, we will all, once again, be enthralled with this genius of a player. End of story, enough said, hope all that personal life stuff of his works out. So why all the hoopla?

It’s a simple distraction, and an entertaining one at that. It’s also the tale of a mistake, maybe a big one, maybe a small one, time will tell (I err on the side of the later). We think that in order to succeed, we need to avoid making mistakes. This could not be farther from the truth. In fact, mistakes are a wonderful thing. They cause pause. They encourage us to reevaluate and rethink. They enable us to review what might be missing and how we can fill in and improve the next time around. Mistakes bring us back to our motivational behavior that encouraged the activity or venture in the first place.

And in some cases, we learn exponentially from the mistakes of others. The Olympics are the most awesome example of exactly that – motivation that spurs from mistakes. If anyone saw Apolo Ohno take home a bronze medal in the men’s 1,000 meter short track over the weekend you know just what I mean. Oh the sight, with Ohno whipping into 3rd position seconds before the finish and the announcer most appropriately stating “you’ve got to wait for the mistake and then make your move.”

Make your moves, learn from your mistakes, and certainly learn from the mistakes of others.

What we do:
Lines of Excellence Consulting offers a variety of services to help companies grow business by growing corporate culture and skills. We work with organizations to outline goals and create action plans to progress effectiveness via business and company goals.

We walk through the step-by-step process of improving productivity and mastering interpersonal communication skills to effectively improve team performance, production, and skills. We ensure that our clients have made the right hiring and training decisions. By identifying strengths that help achieve goals, as well as derailers that have the potential to impede action plans, we collaboratively create the ultimate success plan.

Why we are successful:

• We believe strongly in our professionalism and commitment to being everything implied with the responsibility of doing business in the services industry.
• We are here to serve our clients needs and take your efforts at improvement with the utmost seriousness, professionalism, and care.
• We are committed to improvement because then, and only then, are we successful in our mission.
• Collaborating on solutions and improvements depend on our ability to effectively communicate and listen to our clients. In that way, we not only model our goals, but also enhance your return on investment (ROI).