By nature, I am always in improvement mode, constantly driving change throughout my company. It’s partly my personality of course to always seek to improve how we are doing things. At times I am so focused on change, that I lose site of where we are in relationship to where we have come from as an organization.
In Brian Tracy's book, "Success Is A Journey", he compares mile markers when driving on a trip to tracking progress in your own life’s journey. You see, if you fail to pay attention to the mile markers, you will never get the full picture of how far you've traveled.
How far have we come? Stathakis started as a hopeful venture way back in 1976 run out of a garage with about six people. Over the years, we have grown to a thriving organization that employee over 400 individuals. While the recession saw many independent small and medium sized businesses close their doors, at Stathakis, we tightened our belts, continued to innovate and serve our base and we weathered the storm only to come out stronger and more resilient than before. We have managed to keep our attrition rate to below a quarter of the industry average. We’ve grown as a company, we have grown as managers, supervisors and leaders, we have grown as individuals and we are far from being done growing. We have our sights on employing well over a thousand people in the next few years.
As leaders, we must set goals, tracking our progress and celebrate the mile markers of achievement when we get there. Here are a few simple questions to ask yourself so you can establish some “mile markers” of your own:
- Where has your organization come from?
- Where is your organization today?
- Where is your organization headed?
But just to be clear, don’t spend all your time over celebrating your past. It’s just as important to focus on what you are doing today in relationship to where you want to go. It really becomes a balancing act between the past, present, and future. I myself have to remind myself to give credit to those around me for how far we have come. This also organically creates a certain amount of gratitude, which is another important virtue of success.
“The more credit you give away, the more will come back to you. The more you help others, the more they will want to help you.”
Brian Tracy
It can be so easy as a leader to focus on where you need to go and forget where you have come from. Consider how you too may be driving so fast, you forget to stop at that quaint roadside diner for a bite and reflect on how far you have actually come. I am now slowing down to celebrate the many wins we are experiencing along the way and really trying to enjoy the journey. After all, we spend so much of our time getting to where we want to go and so little time once we get there.
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