Resilience

The Wikidefinition of Resilience is the ability of a material to absorb energy when it is deformed elastically, and release that energy upon unloading.
This has been the definition that I studied during my University times.
Then I started working and Resilience changed from being a Material characteristic to being a PERSONAL characteristic.
Books, meetings and presentations made me understand the meaning of this new meaning for Resilience and the importance of this attitude to succeed achieving your targets (see my Post "Persevere").

But last Sunday I have clearly understood what it means.
First Half Marathon of my life. Good conditions, slightly cold (around zero deg.C) and great view of the mountains around.
This has been my "running target" for this year and to reach this I have trained early in the morning or late at night regardless the weather conditions. Well, I tried my best to be prepared and FINISH the race. 
Finish my first half marathon.
750 people were at the startline ready to run 21km (and some meters) around a beautiful Belluno. 

750 normal people and some real athletes ready to prove themselves they could do it. 
That they could arrive or run faster than last year: simply everybody had a WHY to have moved from other cities, other countries even to be there on a freezing Sunday morning dressed with a red shirt ready to run.

And during the race there were difficult moments, bad feelings, things not working fine but also other runners that helped keeping the right pace or giving some piece of advice to help out of the crisis.
The more you're getting close to the end, the more you are alone though.
And then the last three km are the worst. I was tired, my legs heavy and feet soaring. I am definitely not a real runner and I was clearly feeling that.
But, finally I could see the finish line. Go, go, go, slightly faster to finish propely the race.
Then... no, although the finish line was at 20meters we had to do 1 more km going around the town first down and then uphill.
one km, one thousand meters. After having run 20km. I was completely out of fuel.
Resilience is the ability of a material to absorb energy when it is deformed elastically, and release that energy upon unloading.
I was "deformed" (my feet definitely were) and I had to release the energy, the last energy I had coming out of this.
And that was a real understanding of it.
Now I can say that I am an Halfmarathon finisher (1h 54min... not an athlete yet) and that I know quite well what resilience means.

As usual it is a question of setting targets and work to get there with passion and belief. 
No excuses. No "I do not have time". No "I will do it tomorrow".
As usual a question of people and to give them targets that they can achieve even if there is a "last minute problem". 
And, at the end, sit down and appreciate you have reached your target. 
Then set another one.
Need to stay alive. Need to set the next step and work to reach this. Need to enjoy this.

Next step... 30 km. Bellunofeltrerun

This is my next "running target".
I should probably avoid the thousand of calories that we will have during the dinners on next days. I should, I do not know if I will.
Happy Christmas to everybody

Tell me WHY

It's still a tough time. Though people start being optimistic and there is apparently some positive trend.
It is now time to push the throttle and continue promoting your strategy and ideas.

My recent posts always put the accent on the NEED of having a strategy and to continuously pursue it but are we sure that we know what a strategy is?

I have started having this doubt after a read a post of an ex colleague that was referring to a book written by Simon Sinek "Start with WHY".
Frankly speaking I didn't have a clue about who is Simon Sinek and then I read his BIO. You can find it clicking HERE.
Well, interesting guy and with good ideas and capable to communicate quite well.

Something to learn here!
Being curious, I immediately checked a TED Talk that he made and that you can find here

I can summarize this video in three titles:

1) What you do and how you do it is important but make you no different from the others
2) Marketing message is crucial... we must tell WHY you do things and find "linke minded people" to spread this message and "like minded customers" to buy your strategy
3) There is, according the "law of diffusion of innovation", a tipping point that will make your strategy going from "shared among friends" to "shared everywhere" (or almost).

So... does it mean that willing to have a great product and being the "best one" in the business IS NOT A STRATEGY? Is "WE WANT TO DO" not a strategy?

Well that's tough point to understand. That's a tough point to understand on a "me too" society, where going to a supermarket you can find 100 different types of shampoo.

But it is true. You can be in the business, even survive or grow in the business telling people how good you are in manufactoring products, the products as usual, and how good are your products but you will never be the leader.

It is not that simple though to BELIEVE in something.

Most of all

to clearly TELL PEOPLE what you believe
to PROVE PEOPLE what you believe is right
to PRODUCE THE TOOLS  (or products) that will BE ACCORDING TO WHAT YOU BELIEVE.
to TELL EVERYBODY that you have already "early adopters" that used it and it was good

need a team that is fully involved and that must be a "like minded team".
If this is not the case the message will always be diluted and without a clear and precise  message you cannot reach the tipping point. This famous 15% that will have your "early majority" users (1/3 of the market) start using your solution and paying back your investment.
People don't buy what you do but WHY you do it.
Products, technology, target markets are just ways to reach the strategy.

Ideas
People
Communication
Products

Ingredients are always the same
Recipe is different
Results will the different

Have a nice week end

Assemble or Produce?

I must thank everybody's reading my posts.

So far this blog has been read almost 1600 times, but what is really great for me is that some of the people that read it contacted me to comment and to give me some more ideas for new posts.

This confirms what I once read... if you have something to say, you will find someone that will listen.

One of the recent chat I had with a colleague of mine about my last post was about the fact that what I am writing is not "produced" by myself but I am assembling ideas of others.

That's a good point indeed.
Is this reducing the impact or the meaning of what I am writing?
Well, I am not so sure. Let's put it in this way...

The company I work with is assembling components made by others (even though we are still manufactoring some of the key components that our competitor are buying outside) but we are continuously innovating and differentiating.
The clear strategy we have is to approach in a different way the market to give to the customers SOLUTIONS to increase the efficiency of the system, to improve the indoor air quality and to reduce the total life cycle cost.
But we are doing this assembling components that are made by others.
Where's the secret then?
The secret lays on HOW WE ASSEMBLE the components and HOW WE COMMUNICATE our ideas.

Well, that's also what I am doing. I am assembling in MY OWN WAY what I read, hear and see from others.

If I must be frank, the real reason why I am  keeping this Blog, beside the fact that I like doing this, is to try and learn and put down in a tidy way what I gather from others in order to share it with everybody.

"Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others" and to grow yourself you must ALWAYS study, listen, look and learn.

At the moment I try to be a good assembler and this allows me to use, AGAIN, a quote from Mr.Jack Welch.

In one of his books, Winning, there's a good point. “You are not a leader to win a popularity contest – you are a leader to lead”

No reason to assemble for the sake of showing you are good.

Assemble to learn, to share and to give some ideas.

Ah, before going... I would like, like millions others, to remember Nelson Mandela BUT in a different way. I am sure he would have liked this, still modern after 73 years...

Have a nice week end