How Does Your Business & Brand Achieve Enduring Prosperity?
Besides having a lot of money, what is the # 1 commonality shared by those who have created long-term wealth and success? It’s not intelligence or education. You can always find plenty of highly-educated people with an MBA working dead end jobs. It’s not luck, courage, instinct or timing.
The single characteristic that the prosperous share in common is an unusually lengthy time-span horizon. They see far into the future and make decisions accordingly.
The average person is thinking one or two paycheques ahead.
Top CEO’s are thinking 3-5 years ahead.
Off-the chart visionaries like Einstein & Ford, FDR & JFK, Disney & Jobs were thinking generations ahead.
A Canadian social scientist named Elliott Jaques pioneered this research as far back as 1952. A clinical psychologist who coined the phrase “mid-life crisis”, Elliot predicted and demonstrated with stunning accuracy that:
Truly successful people routinely plant seeds and grow trees they will never sit under.
In other words, they build organizations and brands that will outlast their involvement. Fortunately for one small town company that fell on hard times, they had a leader who recognized it’s never too late to start planting and nurturing those trees.
No matter what his many critics were thinking.This month, we’re exploring the theme of business and brand Longevity; what creates long-term success, sustains it over time and makes it possible for people like you to believe again that long-term success can still materialize in our hyper-fast, short-term world. Discover how you and your team can Play the Longer Game and win multiple times over on this edition of Leaders & Legends.
The measure of who we are is what we do with what we have. VINCE LOMBARDI
PS...
Bob Harlan’s 18-year legacy as the Packers president represents much more than just bringing a winning spirit back to Green Bay and a Super Bowl title in 2007. He contributed much more than a robust annual revenue machine that ensures replacing historic Lambeau Field with a more modern facility will never happen. Harlan’s most significant and enduring contribution may be for millions of business owners anywhere - in any category - who can see the value of a shared vision that extends far beyond the actual product or service. His work inspires anyone from anywhere who believes they can achieve infinite immortality on a frozen field of dreams.
p.p.s … Elliot Jaques (pronounced ‘Jacks’) would have loved to visit Green Bay, take in a Packers game and compare management theory notes with Bob Harlan. Jaques was once asked by a group of front-line workers why the salary of low-level workers was estimated on an hourly, daily or weekly basis, while compensation for executives was described as an annual amount. That single question triggered no fewer than 23 books and a legacy that endures to this day thanks to the efforts of people like Tom Foster.
Based in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, Foster now tours the world speaking to high-level CEO’s and organizations in an effort to combat “flavor-of-the-month” leadership thinking. It’s headsy stuff, but in many respects what Foster does is challenge leaders to question many of their own answers and assumptions against a highly validated and battle-tested management theory. You can discover Tom and his work here: https://timespan101.com/
No one has ever demonstrated the ability to tip toe their way to success and the same is true for any leader who is serious about building an irresistible brand. Just like any other successful form of human endeavour it will require courage, a leap of faith and Unreasonable Commitment to see it through. If your universe revolves around making this happen, you can jump start the process with a program called:
The Branding Highway BOOTCAMP.
All Videos created by Defiant Astronaut Media
Photo cred to: Bryan Garces and Aaron Burden on Unsplash