Sections
Poll: Power pledge
Is Mr. President's promise of additional 6,000 MW of electricity in 18 months achievable?
Training and trade
Font size:
The most important business advice he received early in his career was when he was just 20, and only three weeks into his first real job as foreign affairs and business editor of the largest circulation afternoon newspaper in Frankfurt, Germany. He brought his first two editorials to the editor-in-chief, a German, who took one good look at them and threw them back at him. They are not good at all. Drucker, if you don't improve radically within the next three weeks, you had better look for another job'. Remember he had only been on the job three weeks. Drucker later remarked in an interview with a reporter, 'for me, that was the right treatment. He did not try to mentor me. The idea would have been considered laughable at that time. The concept of mentoring was post World War II. In those days before World War II, you were hired to do a job, and if you didn't do it, you were fired there and then. It's very simple, 'either get good -or get out'.
Training, this is the trademark and the trade secret of world-class champions from all walks of life particularly in the field of sports and business. According to George Clason, in his classic book -The Richest Man in Babylon -as a man perfecteth himself in his calling, his craft or vocation, even so doth his ability to earn increases. In those days when I was but a humble scribe carving upon the clay for a few coppers each day, I observed that other workers did more than me and were paid more. There and then I determined that I would be exceeded by none. Nor did it take long for me to realise the reason for their greater success. More interest in my work, more concentration upon my task, more persistence in my effort, and behold, few men, very few could carve more tablet in a day than I. With promptness, my increased knowledge, skill and productivity was rewarded, nor was it necessary for me to go to my boss six times to ask for a raise. A lowly company clerk walking past the president's office may see a man just sitting in a chair, hands behind his head and starring at a blank wall. The clerk who feels pressured every minute of the day with work to do may wonder what the hell the president does to earn the kind of money he takes home. Are companies presidents worth the huge salaries paid them? My answer would be yes.
The leader hasn't simply practised his vocation or profession, he has mastered it. He knows and has learned everything there is to know about his profession and then surrendered to it. He has become one with it. But such mastery requires absolute focus and concentration, a full deployment of yourself. Becoming an industry leader isn't easy, whether in the writing profession, as a business consultant, e.t.c. anyone who claims otherwise is not wise but fooling himself. As a professional leader, competence is important; a true sense of mastery of the job at hand. The path to self mastery is built on an unrelenting practice, practice, practice. Whether it's in sports, music or creative arts, those we call masters are shamelessly enthusiastic about their calling. They are willing to take chances, to play the fool. It is said that the most powerful learning is that which is most like play. The achievement of mastery in any field requires months and years, yes, years of training and hardwork on yourself and on the job. Every great success was preceded by long period of years of concentration. According to Brian Tracy, it will take about five to seven years to master a particular craft. Even witchcraft takes years for a witch to master. O.G Mandino, an award winning author of many books that have sold in their millions of copies, said that people tell him his books are so easy to read. He often replies them that the reason they are so easy to read is because they were so hard to write. He would write and rewrite a single paragraph as many as fifteen times so that it flowed smoothly from one page to another for the reader.
Keep practising and perfecting your skills at every opportunity. Practice, they say, makes perfect. For the purpose of this material, a new approach to practising and perfecting your skills is in the use of visualisation and guided imagery. Clinical and experimental psychologists have proved the human nervous system cannot tell the difference between an actual experience and one that is vividly imagined. This means you can learn and unlearn physical and mental skills by practising them in your mind .The advantage of using imagination are that you'll never practice the wrong motion. The use of visualisation and guided imagery is now standard and universally used in sports and trainings at Olympic camps. Many famous sports athletes used visualisation and meditation even before the concept became popular. We have often heard stories of Olympic athletes who have spent years in vigorous training and preparation for a one day event. They mentally rehearse their performance, envisioning over and over again the details of execution. They create in themselves the strength to compete successfully. Competition is the driving force of survival. The field of evolutionary psychology has taught us that competition between individuals and groups is what naturally selects winners from losers in society. The makeup of the average individual is to survive competitively. The worlds wealthiest are the greatest competitors. Success and survival are all wrapped up in the ability to compete and dominate.
Golf champ, tiger woods is a text book example of what it takes to be great. Because the father introduced him to golf at an extremely early age-18 months, and encouraged him to practice intensely. Woods had put in at least 15 years of practice by the time he became the youngest ever to win the United States amateur golf championship at age 18. What makes tiger woods great? Woods never stopped trying to improve himself. He was always in the 'woods' devoting hours to practice and even remade his swing twice because that is what it takes to get better. Research now shows that natural talent is irrelevant to greatness. The secret is a painful and demanding practice sessions and hardwork. You will only achieve great success through an enormous amount of hardwork over many years. The world's premier investor, warren buffet for instance is famed for his discipline and the hours he spends studying financial statements of certain investments. In virtually every field of human endeavour, most people learn very quickly at first, then more slowly, and stop developing altogether. Yet a few do improve for years and go on to succeed greatly. Why? How are certain people able to go on improving? Many great sports performers are legendary for their brutal discipline of practice sessions.
But this discipline is not only limited to sports. It has been used successfully by me in improving my writing skills, public speaking skills, job interviews and in selling my self and ideas to prospects.
The largest room in the world is still the room for self improvement. I was recently reading through The Toyota Way, the company's corporate philosophy which incorporates the spirit of Kaizen -a Japanese term for continuous improvement approach. The Toyota Way, for the records reads "perseverance is power at Toyota and we always work with this in mind. We believe that effort in itself does not guaranty progress. Our achievements over the years have shown us that perseverance, creative spirit and continuous improvement reap rewards". The quality revolution in the United States started in Japan and has since transformed the way business is conducted. After World War II, Japan was devastated and their economy left in ruins. Their very first attempt at recovery led to the production of cheap products, especially for exports to the United States. These early products dumped into the U.S market were of such poor standard that they were labelled "Jap scraps". But during the same period in the 1950s, an American management consultant -W Edward Demings visited Japan to advise them on quality control measures to improve their quality of manufacturing. The Japanese welcomed Deming's ideas and business philosophy with much enthusiasm that he lived the next few years of his life there.Demings originally introduced the concept of continuous improvement that came to be popularised as the Kiazen Principle or method of management.
Do not expect to become a market leader unless you are really more informed. Increasingly the most important class distribution in every economy is not the ownership of land or wealth, but the ownership of information.
The key to making a successful career out of your trade is knowledge and continuous education. Do not expect to become an industry leader unless you are really more informed. Remember, leadership develops daily, not in a day. As I close this chapter, never forget that the quality of a person's life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence regardless of their field of career. Man is born free, but you cannot have true freedom without financial freedom. Freedom may be free but it comes with a price. Knowledge is the price. But knowledge does not come easy; investments have to be made to extract it. The applications of knowledge are at the core of today's technological revolution and have been instrumental in the growth of economies in more advanced societies. KNOWLEDGE RULES THE WORLD
Training, this is the trademark and the trade secret of world-class champions from all walks of life particularly in the field of sports and business. According to George Clason, in his classic book -The Richest Man in Babylon -as a man perfecteth himself in his calling, his craft or vocation, even so doth his ability to earn increases. In those days when I was but a humble scribe carving upon the clay for a few coppers each day, I observed that other workers did more than me and were paid more. There and then I determined that I would be exceeded by none. Nor did it take long for me to realise the reason for their greater success. More interest in my work, more concentration upon my task, more persistence in my effort, and behold, few men, very few could carve more tablet in a day than I. With promptness, my increased knowledge, skill and productivity was rewarded, nor was it necessary for me to go to my boss six times to ask for a raise. A lowly company clerk walking past the president's office may see a man just sitting in a chair, hands behind his head and starring at a blank wall. The clerk who feels pressured every minute of the day with work to do may wonder what the hell the president does to earn the kind of money he takes home. Are companies presidents worth the huge salaries paid them? My answer would be yes.
The leader hasn't simply practised his vocation or profession, he has mastered it. He knows and has learned everything there is to know about his profession and then surrendered to it. He has become one with it. But such mastery requires absolute focus and concentration, a full deployment of yourself. Becoming an industry leader isn't easy, whether in the writing profession, as a business consultant, e.t.c. anyone who claims otherwise is not wise but fooling himself. As a professional leader, competence is important; a true sense of mastery of the job at hand. The path to self mastery is built on an unrelenting practice, practice, practice. Whether it's in sports, music or creative arts, those we call masters are shamelessly enthusiastic about their calling. They are willing to take chances, to play the fool. It is said that the most powerful learning is that which is most like play. The achievement of mastery in any field requires months and years, yes, years of training and hardwork on yourself and on the job. Every great success was preceded by long period of years of concentration. According to Brian Tracy, it will take about five to seven years to master a particular craft. Even witchcraft takes years for a witch to master. O.G Mandino, an award winning author of many books that have sold in their millions of copies, said that people tell him his books are so easy to read. He often replies them that the reason they are so easy to read is because they were so hard to write. He would write and rewrite a single paragraph as many as fifteen times so that it flowed smoothly from one page to another for the reader.
Keep practising and perfecting your skills at every opportunity. Practice, they say, makes perfect. For the purpose of this material, a new approach to practising and perfecting your skills is in the use of visualisation and guided imagery. Clinical and experimental psychologists have proved the human nervous system cannot tell the difference between an actual experience and one that is vividly imagined. This means you can learn and unlearn physical and mental skills by practising them in your mind .The advantage of using imagination are that you'll never practice the wrong motion. The use of visualisation and guided imagery is now standard and universally used in sports and trainings at Olympic camps. Many famous sports athletes used visualisation and meditation even before the concept became popular. We have often heard stories of Olympic athletes who have spent years in vigorous training and preparation for a one day event. They mentally rehearse their performance, envisioning over and over again the details of execution. They create in themselves the strength to compete successfully. Competition is the driving force of survival. The field of evolutionary psychology has taught us that competition between individuals and groups is what naturally selects winners from losers in society. The makeup of the average individual is to survive competitively. The worlds wealthiest are the greatest competitors. Success and survival are all wrapped up in the ability to compete and dominate.
Golf champ, tiger woods is a text book example of what it takes to be great. Because the father introduced him to golf at an extremely early age-18 months, and encouraged him to practice intensely. Woods had put in at least 15 years of practice by the time he became the youngest ever to win the United States amateur golf championship at age 18. What makes tiger woods great? Woods never stopped trying to improve himself. He was always in the 'woods' devoting hours to practice and even remade his swing twice because that is what it takes to get better. Research now shows that natural talent is irrelevant to greatness. The secret is a painful and demanding practice sessions and hardwork. You will only achieve great success through an enormous amount of hardwork over many years. The world's premier investor, warren buffet for instance is famed for his discipline and the hours he spends studying financial statements of certain investments. In virtually every field of human endeavour, most people learn very quickly at first, then more slowly, and stop developing altogether. Yet a few do improve for years and go on to succeed greatly. Why? How are certain people able to go on improving? Many great sports performers are legendary for their brutal discipline of practice sessions.
But this discipline is not only limited to sports. It has been used successfully by me in improving my writing skills, public speaking skills, job interviews and in selling my self and ideas to prospects.
The largest room in the world is still the room for self improvement. I was recently reading through The Toyota Way, the company's corporate philosophy which incorporates the spirit of Kaizen -a Japanese term for continuous improvement approach. The Toyota Way, for the records reads "perseverance is power at Toyota and we always work with this in mind. We believe that effort in itself does not guaranty progress. Our achievements over the years have shown us that perseverance, creative spirit and continuous improvement reap rewards". The quality revolution in the United States started in Japan and has since transformed the way business is conducted. After World War II, Japan was devastated and their economy left in ruins. Their very first attempt at recovery led to the production of cheap products, especially for exports to the United States. These early products dumped into the U.S market were of such poor standard that they were labelled "Jap scraps". But during the same period in the 1950s, an American management consultant -W Edward Demings visited Japan to advise them on quality control measures to improve their quality of manufacturing. The Japanese welcomed Deming's ideas and business philosophy with much enthusiasm that he lived the next few years of his life there.Demings originally introduced the concept of continuous improvement that came to be popularised as the Kiazen Principle or method of management.
Do not expect to become a market leader unless you are really more informed. Increasingly the most important class distribution in every economy is not the ownership of land or wealth, but the ownership of information.
The key to making a successful career out of your trade is knowledge and continuous education. Do not expect to become an industry leader unless you are really more informed. Remember, leadership develops daily, not in a day. As I close this chapter, never forget that the quality of a person's life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence regardless of their field of career. Man is born free, but you cannot have true freedom without financial freedom. Freedom may be free but it comes with a price. Knowledge is the price. But knowledge does not come easy; investments have to be made to extract it. The applications of knowledge are at the core of today's technological revolution and have been instrumental in the growth of economies in more advanced societies. KNOWLEDGE RULES THE WORLD
Add to:
del.icio.us |
Digg
del.icio.us |
Digg
Email to a friend
Print version
Plain textRate this article
Comments ( posted):
Post your comment