A metaphor for operating a business in today’s challenging and changing business climate arrived in our inbox last week. We’ll get to that in a minute. But before we do, consider that staying the course and remaining focused, in spite of all the background clatter and flux in the current economy, is a primary concern of today’s business owner.
Historically, there’s a glut of business books about the innovation that can result from challenging periods like this. In the face of impossible odds, entrepreneurs and inventors hang out in skunk works to brainstorm and create. This effort often results in new ways of thinking—-and a spate of new companies and products.
Business tomes and MBA classes are rife with these Horatio Alger-type stories. Perhaps these innovators discover a novel business application, a break through in a field everyone else thought was fully developed? Or the inventor who, having spent years on developing a process that coverts waste heat to power, stumbles on a technology that finally makes it all doable by the recent discovery of a new and wondrous semiconductor material.
These transformational and often herculean efforts – like those of visionary and creative genius, Steve Jobs – are what makes this country the cradle of innovation, new technologies and enterprise.
They involve risk taking to an extreme—long hours, passion, inestimable investment and an unshakeable belief in your business dream or ideal. And hopefully at the end of the day, the integrity to represent you and your new product or business honestly and legitimately.
But now, back to that metaphor….
The e-mail included this video of a young man hanging from the wing tip of an airplane, high above the Utah landscape. Risk taking, believing in one’s self, courage—-this young man’s daring represents many of the essential skill sets necessary to survive and thrive in today’s business world. And then some.
The young dare-devil is our nephew, so the message is even more relevant and gripping.
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Lawton Gallagher Group is a full-service online and traditional communications, marketing and public relations firm with offices in downtown Traverse City, Michigan.
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