Maximise Potential

M. Scott Peck begins his best-selling book "The Road Less Traveled" with the words "Life is Difficult." We have all experienced difficulties and failure but the key question is how we can use failure to improve our success. In fact it might even be better to not label anything a failure. One example of a team that continuously falls short in big moments (world cup) is the South African cricket team which has always failed at knock out games in their world cup campaigns with one exception. They were highly fancied during the 2015 world cup held in Australia/New Zealand earlier this year and still lost in the semifinal. It is likely that they are not able to bury the ghosts of past failures which is required if they ever want to win and go all the way. Here are some answers I have expanded with each letter of the word Failure. F – Fail forward John Maxwell begins his book Failing Forward with the thesis that “All successful people have one characteristi...

Steve Jobs is one of the most versatile and innovative business icons of our times. Here is my take on what to learn from Steve Jobs S – Sell yourself –Steve Jobs was unafraid of showing off. In fact it could be argued this was his biggest asset. Unless you show others what you are capable of nobody is going to know. I think we should learn to sell ourselves not in an abrupt manner but a classy manner. This requires practice but this will pay off in spades. He was always in the spotlight, enjoyed it and created the larger than life personality. Lesson: Never sell yourself short. Always exhibit your prowess. T – Talent – If there is anyone who epitomizes the word talent it has to be Steve Jobs. How many people started a company in the garage, enjoyed massive success, get fired from the company he founded, founded another company, made successful movies and came back for one of the biggest turn around in business history. He is one who believed in his talent even when he was...

Teams are the most important building block of projects, organizations, sports teams and their performance ultimately decides overall success. An important goal of a leader is to develop winning happy teams which contribute desired results. Effective team building is a critical skill for a leader to develop and the main areas which can contribute to this are Team Selection: The first step of leaders is to select the right team. The skill set needed for every project is different so it is absolutely imperative that the right team players are on boarded. Selection of a team is an art and requires some intuition along with logic. We have seen in sports like cricket, football that selection of the team is crucial for victory. There are some sports teams full of superstars and still lose because a team does not require all superstars it is more about attitude, team bonding and sacrificing for the larger cause.  Team Vision: Once the team is selected an exciting vision is cruc...