Project questions to start with

Here are 2 project questions to start with. We need to think differently.

1. How will this project enhance the Customer Experience in a way that’s so ‘dramatically different’ that we capture new customers and retain old customers and grow our share of the business with them? 
2.  And, will it markedly boost the ‘top line’? What will the impact on our mission look like?

How can we do what has never been done before we think? We can. We need to think differently. That will lead us to act differently. Consider this from 1923.

“There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom.” ~~Robert Milikan, Nobel Prize in physics, 1923

Where does trust come from?

Here is a great question. Where does trust come from? We all want it. It isn't always easy to get or build.

Hint: it never comes from the good times and from the easy projects.

We trust people because they showed up when it wasn't convenient, because they told the truth when it was easier to lie and because they kept a promise when they could have gotten away with breaking it.

Every tough time and every pressured project is another opportunity to earn the trust of someone you care about.

via Seth's Blog: Where does trust come from?.

The Acute Heptagram of Impact. Should you get it tattooed on your hip?

This makes a lot of sense. Many times we focus on what we are good at but ignore essential items that we need to be successful. Great teams, working collaboratively, pull all these strengths together.

Not as catchy a title as Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, but I hope you'll walk through this with me:

I can outline a strategy for you, but if you don't have the tactics in place or you're not skilled enough to execute, it won't matter if the strategy is a good one.

Your project's success is going to be influenced in large measure by the reputation of the people who join in and the organization that brings it forward. That's nothing you can completely change in a day, but it's something that will change (like it or not) every day.

None of this matters if you and your team don't persist, and your persistence will largely be driven by the desire you have to succeed, which of course is relentlessly undermined by the fear we all wrestle with every day.

These seven elements: Strategy, Tactics, Execution, Reputation, Persistence, Desire and Fear, make up the seven points of the acute heptagram of impact. If your project isn't working, it's almost certainly because one or more of these elements aren't right. And in my experience, it's all of them. We generally pick the easiest and safest one to work on (probably tactics) without taking a deep breath and understanding where the real problem is.

Feel free to share the AHI, but please don't have it tattooed on your hip or anything.

Godinshierarchy

via Seth's Blog: The Acute Heptagram of Impact.

Related articles

• What employees really need at work (tech.fortune.cnn.com)


• Half Sigma's Instinct Hierarchy (halfsigma.com)


• If Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Still Valid (slideshare.net)