Truly and significantly successful people are
different from the rest, that’s a cliché, but what are these differences and
can they be adopted by just about anyone so that true success can be
replicated? That’s a question that drives many management thinkers, leaders and
even the regular ambitious Joe. People have come out with their own
interpretations ranging from ‘luck’ to‘ hard work ’,‘ focus’, ‘discipline’, ‘sense
of judgment’ and so on. They are all correct from their own perspectives
because people and the situations they encounter can be distinct and hence
qualities required succeeding in one situation maybe different from the other –
hard work may pay-off for a sportsman but an immediate requirement for a daily
trader would be a keen sense of judgment. Thus, the qualities required for true
success may be as varied as the goals that individuals follow. However, that does
not mean it would take a complex process of analysis for every individual to
discover what s/he needs to do to become truly and significantly successful. have
three common differences from the rest:
1.
They Act Different
2.
They Think Different
3.
They Believe Different
This is the message from the research done
by Porras, Emery, and Thompson in their best selling book "Success Built
To Last", published by Wharton School Publishing.
As an expert in your field you know that
one can have all the knowledge of the domain, even be a Professor of Marketing
at Harvard, yet s/he may fail to grow profitably. Why is it that Warren Buffet consistently
succeeds where other often fail? The
knowledge is there for everybody to acquire but not the success. Because most of us consistently get stuck in
our own glass ceilings.
·
80% of all sales are won by less than 20% of sales people
·
80% of profits come from 20% of your customers.
·
80% of times we wear less than 20% of our clothes.
·
80% of marketing dollars bring less than 20% returns.
·
80% of all divorces are caused by less than 20% of all divorcees.
·
80% of a VC yield comes from less than 20% of investments.
·
80% of tasks in a give day bring less than 20% of the value.
The difference lies in recognizing the
underlying structure of the decision making process. The one single element that explains success
is how we make decisions. And we are
constantly making decisions, even when we decide to stay focused in the moment
of the action. It is how we make
decisions that set us apart. Every
moment is a decision point. What we fail
to understand though, is that decision is not an event but a series of events
all linked into an intricate process.
Any misalignment at any time brings down the house of card.
THE TYRANNY OF THE MIND
According to Vedanta, an ancient philosophy
on the art of masterful action, which is subscribed by some of the worlds most
sought after F-500 CEO Coaches (review the business week article), it is the
intellect's ability to manage the mind that is necessary for good decision
making, success, and happiness.
Intelligence is the power behind the processing of information, mind is
the seat of passion, and intellect is responsible for wisdom and understanding
- making sense of the world. Mind is
wayward and responds to each stimulus with likes and dislikes and heightens
certain stimulus while repressing others.
When the intellect is weak and mind strong incorrect assertions are made
that contribute to erroneous tactile decisions and validation of incorrect
assumptions. We all have had experience
with the words "I don't know what I was thinking". Strong intellect recognizes minds true
proclivities and guides the passion to rightful action. Mind, interferes with
our intellect by constantly liking and disliking and making a mountain out of a
mole and a mole out of a mountain.
Freeing the intellect from the clutches of the mind is necessary for
lasting success through superior decision making. As they say, an uncontrolled mind is the
architect of our misfortunes. Fear and
greed are the two primary culprits that subtly or directly interfere with our
latent intellects ability to make unimpaired decisions.
Psychologists call them inevitable
distortions, deceptions, human biases, overpessimism, overoptimism, or even
cognitive imperfections that they say are natural. They say that these biases
distort the way people collect and process information. I say, essentially, these are the result of
greed and fear that lead the strongest of leaders astray in their strategic
decisions from mergers and acquisitions to launching new products.
The choices we have are infinite and we can
always make better decisions by training and by recognizing that the mind is
clouding our better judgment. Let your mind not drive you insane.
WHAT IS INTELLECT
Intellect is not intelligence. Far from it, it is what we often call
wisdom. It is the latent and innate
ability of a person to see patterns from a high point, while not being beguiled
by noise and confounding thoughts. This
happens only when the mind is calm.
Intelligence on the other hand is the raw procession power of the brain.
THE THREE ALIGNMENTS
A sound unhindered intellect allows us to
discern our values and make core decisions consistent with them. This is how the truly successful people in
Porras's study have a different belief structure. Almost as if it is their core competence,
they focus their energies on what is meaningful for them, at the exclusion of
all else. A powerful intellect calms the
mind and allows one to achieve concentration and consistency that are necessary
for true success. The alignment between
values and core decision is critical to success and happiness. Likewise, there has to be alignment between
the core decisions and a series of tactile decisions that are required to be
made. These tactile decisions are
usually the execution steps toward the accomplishment of the goals of the core
decisions. Misalignment causes execution
error and resulting failure. Here too,
mind often is the culprit in impairing our judgment to act as needed. When the mind is calm because of a powerful
intellect such errors typically do not occur.
Lastly, the alignment between tactical decision and execution, where the
need is for concentration at the exclusion of all else, is only possible when
the mind is non cognizant of fear and greed.
EMPOWERING THE INTELLECT
Is this possible? How does one empower the
intellect? There are those who are born
with a powerful intellect. For the rest,
there is training. The mere awareness
that we are slaves of our mind like children are to their whims is a sufficient
start. For a child the world is the
plastic ring they so badly want enough to make everybody miserable for that
hour but not to be thought about the next.
It is no different for the rest of us.
Decisions made under the influence (DUI) of the wayward mind explain why
most investors fail but not Warren Buffet.
Yet most children get trained. So
can we.
It is important to note that even when we
are seemingly calm we are driven by our mind.
In subtle ways we are influenced into not seeing things for what they
are. The intellect can be trained to
recognize the fickle mind's influence over decision making. Vedanta Academy provides such training
programs to senior executives of Fortune 500 corporations. We at the Value Forward Network have arranged
for a tele-seminar same as one provided at Harvard Business School and Goldman
Sachs.
"Success Is A Premeditated
Choice."
Published by The 8020Strategy Group,