In working life you will find three types of persons:
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In my last blog I asked you to make a personal assessment of WHY you go to your place of work? I ended with the following few lines: Your behaviour, your mind-set and generosity to others.....already shows and will improve as you start. Are you ready for, tilling instead of toiling. exploring and discovering new opportunities? Find JOY when you practice YOUR work as tilling with passion. What are the prerequisites to do that? - Your Will, your passion and initially also very hard work - but now you are tilling and not toiling, you are optimistic but probably also somewhat fearful. Which is normal and okay, even beneficial. Exploration is exciting and always contains some risk. I compare it to a long passage with many doors: some are closed shut, some are somewhat open. Have a look if it is an opportunity for your skill-set, your experience and expertise. Now see if the client is prepared to pay you in accordance with the best work you will deliver. You win some, you loose some but radiate a humble confidence that you can do this in time and budget. And then go do it. Be generous with your work, amicable in your relationships with the client and give your best effort. Over the long term you will win more and more due to your integrity, your delivery of your best work and who knows word of mouth will also be a large factor. Besides, there are lots of doors that may be closed, but you can always knock and ask. Too few people are prepared to do that. Think about it. Think some more. Continuously get better. Enjoy the challenge. Initially do as much as you can with the resources you have and even more important: be RESOURCEFUL ! Blog 1 was about WAKING UP
"Get your ducks in a row and decide what to do with your duck" Remember?. What type of business do you want to be in and once you decided, what are you going to do with it. Why is it important for you? Why does it drive / motivate you? What do you want to achieve? Who are your typical customers? Those who believe what you believe or need what you provide. Blog 2 was about GETTING UP Make your plans. If your business idea is mainly for online, maybe selling your expertise as a pdf, as a video, as a an eBook or whatever, the internet would be a logical answer for many many reasons. Especially during a Pandemic. There were a couple of key aspects mentioned in Blog 2 you should consider when you want to bring your business / your idea across to others. Blog 3 was about GETTING READY Create a greater awareness of your environment at the present and in the future. Be aware of new opportunities and trends in terms of online businesses and technology. Awareness about what you already know and are skilled with, what you need to unlearn and importantly, where you must engage and apply your mind-set for innovative self-study and learning. Innovation is the main ingredient for any business today: New ideas, new processes, re-visiting your most cherished assumptions and look at them from a different perspective. Be ready to change, be ready to learn. Make a decision with your mind and your soul. Take a risk but don't be reckless. Bet on something: your hunches, your dream, your diligence and confidence. Get ready for sailing action as good as you can while sitting in the Dry Dock. You know the theory, you have practical experience, you want to follow your "moonshot" and you know the level of your risk. Now apply it with smartness, integrity and humility, yet boldly! This blog, Blog 4, is about launching. GET GOING Are you enslaved to security or comfort? Both will not get you charged up for the excitement of the New. Decide that you want to break out of BORING and start something "completely different" and EXCITING. Break out of a J.O.B. (just over broke) situation. Become Gainfully Unemployed. Yes, it might not work out right away. Continue to be intentional, be inspiring, be resolute and be agile. Be prepared to tweak your approach over time as you learn and find out what works. If you find that too intimidating or even worse, finding excuses for your procrastination, then get yourself a COACH or enroll in the T-SHIRT UNIVERSITY or speak to a good and honest friend who cares enough to help you become successful on the Internet ... or in your current situation. BUT DO SOMETHING WITH THAT DUCK OF YOURS, NOW THAT YOU HAVE AT LEAST ONE OF THEM IN A ROW! Start again at Blog 1 until you're ready. AWARENESS:
Assess, Your situation. (Circumstances and personally) Your country. (The Present and the Future ) Your industry, place of work or practice. ( Do you see the changes coming, the potential opportunities, an alternative for yourself, e.g. Hobbies as a business idea?) Your technology skills. (Computer and the Internet) INNOVATION Think. Re-think. You have many ideas. Think good ones through. Completely. Look at all pros and cons. Think of the type or group of people for whom your idea is the solution to their issue or satisfies their need (not YOUR NEED!) Make a DECISION Think why you made that decision. NOW ACT WITH BOLDNESS BUT DO NOT BE RECKLESS A bit of fear is good. Keeps you alert! Don't let the fear factor freeze you into procrastination or doubt. If you haven't started yet, the best time is NOW. HENCE, GET GOING. Some more considerations: You have a JOB, you had a JOB? You worked hard all your life: made money to retire on or maybe didn’t make enough money to retire? Your quality of life and life-style was slipping steadily even before the C-19 Pademic. You don’t trust computers, social media and all that new technology stuff! "I am not so young anymore” What can I do?" Remember in any JOB you have or had, you can only do 3 things: Reacting - to an external input (most common) Responding – to a request by email. (Look at your subject lines: starting with Re:…) Initiating – thinking up new ideas, improving processes, Think again about this: Reacting adds no value unless you make a decision one way or another. Responding is gratifying because it feels that you did something. But nothing of value! If you did not initiate anything today or during the whole week, or in your last job, you have accomplished NOTHING. Why are you "at work"? "BUT these few words don't make it easy or certain that I will succeed." "THAT IS CORRECT. BUT IF YOU DON'T START YOU WILL CERTAINLY NOT ACHIEVE ANYTHING." What is awaiting the thinking person: Amazing opportunities, almost unlimited!!! NOTE: Its not about resources but resourcefulness. It is not about the Qualification, it is about what you know, what insight you have, what you do with it . ("IT" being your DUCK, Blog 14.3.2021.) “The Weather” happens to just about everybody. You have to play with the cards you have. This has nothing to do with luck! Maybe you could use a Coach. To help you set your course. Every top athlete and successful business person has one..... Why would that be? Again, Think about these things. Thanks for checking this blog. You find more at www.winzker.com You might recall the Container ship mishap during March 2021, when the 220 000 tons EVER GIVEN mega container ship got stuck in the Suez Canal was a serious incident for a number of reasons:
1. The various possibilities that caused / contributed to the accident 2. The effect it had on the backed up sea traffic through the canal in both directions 3. The vulnerability of this strategic route in the case of a war, sabotage or terrorist attack (or the weather as we have seen) 4. The consequences on the supply lines and on the economies of a number of countries. This let me wonder if Just in Time, or JIT should, in the planning of some industries, not be replaced by a Just in Case, or JIC philosophy. Even in our personal and business lives in an age of high levels of efficiency, precision, fast response and timing it may be worth to reconsider that under some circumstances JIC is to be preferred or at least be considered in parallel to JIT. As a Strategic Intent in a very turbulent world the fine-tuning of supply lines to prevent stoppages due to material flow are vulnerable to very risky assumptions. They should possibly at least be re-considered. Just in Case. There were many ships with live-stock and limited water and food on board, exactly calculated for the trip with a small buffer for minor contingencies. That also caused separate calamities. The degree of economic upset as a result of the incident in the Canal was already serious enough, but imagine if the ship could not have been freed within a month or longer, the cargo could not be unloaded in the middle of the desert without real cranes not being an option, or some other unforeseen consequence occurred compounding the accident? My point? When you plan your own day / week / month or year, privately or in a business context, maybe the JIC approach is a better one than the JIT - at least when considering strategy in the context of logistics or other scenarios and assumptions. Think about it. Just in Case. t PURPOSE - Why do we do this? How will we achieve this? What are the learning principles and/or specifics? Who are the people we want to impact? No traditional Lecturers, no matter how qualified. Peers and Coaches mainly learning from each other.
OUTCOMES - what do we wish to achieve or influence? It is NOT about ticking the boxes and regurgitation of content. Outcomes are NOT predetermined. It’s about learning WHAT WORKS! TRANSFORMATION - influencing mind-set in terms of Personal Transformation and building that into the context of the specific discipline, entrepreneurial idea or course. Mind-sets are changed, perspectives challenged, the participants transformed by utilizing their particular gifts and skill sets. TECHNOLOGY-ENABLED FUTURE - Great opportunities abound. The type of work and how we work. How will humans with their "slow biology" fit into this scenario for better or for worse? These are part of the requirements of the Technology-driven Future. AWARENESS - Awareness of what is going on in the world on many levels and key areas. Reading and studying and finding out "explorer style". Researching the BIG Questions. Encourage self-study & self-development, encourage learning through interaction with peers, mentors and coaches. LEARNING is much more important than teaching. Learning is activated and cemented by group interactions, and coaching. Peer learning, sharing personal experience and exposure to different perspectives produces real learning. Discovery is the name of the game. THINKING - promote systems thinking, sideways thinking, critical thinking, independent thinking, innovative thinking. By asking pertinent open-ended questions that require intentional thinking, reasoning and the ability to analyse and synthesize. Thinking is becoming a lost art? PERSONAL TRANSFORMATION - for the students and the coaches alike. Voluntarily, not because it is prescribed. How to think about your work, your life and your personal future. Achieve the potential in the opportunities you see for yourself but for the greater good. ADAPTED FOR A DIGITAL AGE - Internet based research, learning and interaction. Use of appropriate technology in age of pandemics, resulting in new work methods & new forms of social interactions. With an emphasis on innovation, speed, agility and clear vision. ENERGY and diversity of student interactions, ENTHUSIASM of all participants, illustration from PE ie Personal EXPERIENCE or OPE , Other People’s EXPERIENCE, inspire to EXPLORE. Make the Space for deep and robust EXCHANGES of perspectives. Energy and ability to handle ERRORS too. ASSESSMENT - Get away from ticking boxes and regurgitating content. Today's requirement at this level of maturity and priority is “no longer the acquisition of knowledge per se, BUT more about acquiring whole-sight, in-sight, understanding and wisdom in terms of application and implementation”. Development of maturity, professionalism, PASSION AND LOVE for the work and delivery of excellence and value. Seth Godin says, " Getting your ducks in a row is a fine thing to do, but deciding what you are going to do with that duck is the more important issue."
After "sitting on a rock" and deep contemplation, I am not sure "with which duck" I will start. I have many ideas and often they may be reasonably original and even innovative during conversations, but what is that for a blog? I have read many blogs, some interesting and some irrelevant for me and also wondered why the bloggers chose their particular line. If you read blogs "randomly" of course you can be disappointed by most because the themes and topics do not resonate. My theme may be transformational ideas of many kinds and applications. We'll see. We are all peculiar in some way, myself included of course, but I was wondering what is really worth sharing. And what provides some tangible value to the reader. You can see what I am interested in by simply diving into the details of my website, winzker.com, but that might only be relevant if something on the site or in the blog will resonate with you. As I have been involved in part-time post-graduate teaching for 25 years I have often wondered, if what we do at the university level, is really of value to the students and thus applicable in the real world of TODAY. So I changed my whole approach to teaching at that level to stir up a desire for LEARNING; mainly encouraging the student's desire for self-study, systems- and critical thinking, as well as collaboration in teams (groups). The whole process of LEARNING, lacking a specific pre-determined OUTCOME, create INSIGHT from available knowledge (which can be found anywhere), convey a strong sense of FUN in the work we do, be as CREATIVE as in ART and make the student a TRANSFORMATIVE LEADER by being confident, bold and action driven in his or her field. That is a mouthful and very ambitious, I know. But it can be done - I tried it, practiced it in all my teaching assignments and Business Workshop Facilitations in different cultures and countries over the past decade. It works. But I am also learning constantly myself. It is not perfect (it will never be). However, the one major outcome is that many students became empowered by new creative insights and they saw the opportunity to step out with intentionality. They developed the beginnings of transformational leadership. Some in their current positions and others in new ventures. That will be the thread of this blog for a while. Or at least this represents MY DUCK! To share what I tried, how I did it, what results the attendees achieved and to possibly start a discussion forum .... and we will see from there. Thank you for reading my Blog |
Dietmar Winzker?
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