adminZachary Aldwin Change Management
We exist in an “instant and always connected” world where information is available at the touch of a button. You can a watch movie anytime, take a tonne of books with you on your tablet, and make a phone call from almost anywhere in the world. Stores are opening later to feed the needs of those with a sudden desire for a late night snack.
Advertisements promise overnight shipping, immediate delivery and rapid results. You could lose 10 pounds in a week without spending hours and weeks in the gym-just pop a pill. We have created a culture of instant fulfilment. The need for instant gratification has spilled over into our personal lives as well-social media has created a world of instant feedback with ‘like’ buttons that allow those who barely know you to feed your craving for the immediate.
We all want things now and the lottery, the instant meal, online booking services, 24-hour access to online banking all cater to that. In contrast a great friend of mine is leaving the country after staying in the same house for 20 years. I have been helping him pack up and clean out a lifetime of memories. It has taken ages. I asked him how he ended up with all this junk.
His response was “You accumulate it over time”. Sure you can throw money at a property and hire an interior decorator to put stuff inside but there is no attachment to it-you have a house, not a home. Building a home takes time. We all want instant solutions to the economy, to our cash flow crisis, to our business issues. Guess what! None of the solutions are immediate, and any that are short term are probably doomed to fail in the long term.
Get into things for the long haul and stick with it. Some entrepreneurs are happy to only take their company so far and then sell, they then aim to repeat this again and again with different companies. Their aim is build and exit. This is a totally different approach to building a company that is going last decades. Choose to make an impact, sink your teeth into doing so. Commit to a project. Commit to a job. Commit to building greatness around you.
Greatness takes time to create. A parent was complaining to me about the huge variety of sports and activities his child is expected to do.
It is great to try stuff to get experience, but sooner or later the child has to commit to one or two sports if he is going to have a chance at really excelling in them. It is difficult to spend three hours a day in training if you are expected to do that for three different sports. There is no ‘immediate’ sportsman. Our immediate attitude shows in our driving. There is a “get ahead in traffic” mentality that seeks to push through the gap now regardless of whether someone else is moving in at the same time.
Then we get into a jam and no one moves. This attitude is how we are running our lives and businesses in Zimbabwe. We try to cover as much of the road as possible and would rather sit in standstill traffic for half an hour than allow other people to move in front of us. Forget the sake of the greater good which eventually would allow us to pass through the intersection and move on to brighter and clearer roads ahead. A trip to South Africa highlighted this recently. For the uninitiated our southern neighbours operate the 4-way-stop system.
This is basically a turn taking first in-first out rotation at intersections. Four of you arrive at an intersection-you let those who were at the line before you pass through before you move. It may be a little slow but it avoids the dramatic gridlock that occurs when the traffic lights go down here. Sadly I think it is too late to institute a similar system here because local drivers lack the patience and perseverance to wait for their turn rather than a quick get ahead that ensures no one wins.
It is sports season and I am not just talking about the Rugby World Cup. I have been paying a little more attention to the world of eSports. There are a couple of tournaments currently on with online broadcasts. League of Legends has its World Championships with a million dollars prize money up for grabs (that’s right you heard me a million dollars over a computer game)! Quick summary of the game: team matches of gaining ground with the added bonus of killing opponents as you go.
Here is what I have noticed about watching the pros play as compared to the amateurs. During many of the matches players are not just aiming at getting the kill, but about creating a tactical advantage to win the game. They wait to create the right opportunity rather than taking a quick bonus that has no long term benefit. Look to win the war, not just the battle.
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