Assignment 30A - Final Reflection

I believe the most formative experience of the semester was the Bug List exercise. Of all the assignments completed, this was one that really challenged me to think differently about the things I do, see, and experience every day. While I would not call it a “joyous” experience, reading How to Fail at Almost Anything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams was the thing I most enjoyed. I started a challenging new job in the middle of this semester, and the book reminded me about many things including “being selfish” (taking care of yourself first so you can take care of others and ultimately do everything more effectively). I tend to sacrifice all of my personal interests, and run myself into the ground trying to succeed at work. I am most proud of sticking to this course till the end. I developed reoccurring migraine headache episodes this semester which made keeping up with work and school very difficult. I didn’t get the A grade that is typical of my academic performance, but it looks like I will finish with a respectable B- and get the needed course credit.

I don’t know that the course necessarily helped me develop an entrepreneurial mindset. Well, let me say I never had a passion to want to be a true entrepreneur, and I still do not. I think I need too much structure and stability in my life. But the skills we used during the semester, while not necessarily new to me, helped sharpen my existing skills and remind me of what I need to think about as an intrapreneur for the company that employs me.

The best piece of advice I would offer to future students is to read all of the assignments in advance of selecting an idea, problem, or product for the semester. Some of the assignments required interviews with people from the industry your idea or product was related to and, based on the idea I chose, I unfortunately did not have any contacts or have enough time during the course of the assignment week to try and research who I could possibly talk to and complete the interview (given I work full time).

Assignment 28A - Your Exit Strategy

My exit strategy is to get in and out, fast! I don’t even anticipate waiting the 5 years.

The goal would be to make no long term investments in development, manufacturing, or sales of this particular product, as it is so closely tied to today’s existing smart device technology. Even with a patent, technology changes so quickly. I do not want to still be in this business when smart devices no longer require hand-eye coordination. Or, when vehicle integration technology becomes so sophisticated that direct smart device interface is no longer required. Or, when autonomous driving really takes off! The plan would be to sell off the patent, and cash out with no strings attached.

I know we have been talking about always starting our business by having the end in mind. Or, we have at least later in the course. Honestly, when I was picking an opportunity to pursue, I was just trying to come up with one. Period. That is usually half my struggle, picking an idea, because I tend to be a perfectionist (although I am making great strides with this in recent years!) The opportunity I selected ended up being one that satisfied the initial course assignment criteria, and one that I believed I could most develop a concept from. There was no end game in mind. Similarly, because we have been walking through the process step by step, growth intentions or resources were not influenced by the exit strategy.

Assignment 27A - Reading Reflection No. 3

For the third and final reading reflection, I read How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big, by Scott Adams. The theme in general was a reflection on his life experience, challenges he has faced, and valuable lessons he has learned along the way. He was very open with the fact that, while not particularly gifted in any one thing, a compilation of a lifetime of skillsets led to great success. This includes a self-admitted realization, from the creator of Dilbert, that he is not even the best animator! He talks extensively about not being afraid to try different things, and that failure is a tool not an outcome, because the experience learned in failure is often the most beneficial (while also being strangely enjoyable).

There were a couple of main themes that stood out to me in this book that echoed loudly what we are learning in ENT3003 lectures and weekly assignments. The first is that seeking advice from others is critical to help steer clear of mistakes and leverage the life experiences of others. But, people only know what they know, and that knowledge is not everything. If you have conviction, have done your research, and believe you have a viable idea, it’s your opportunity to lose not theirs! The author also very much agrees that when it comes to your ideas, your friends and family will lie to you!

A very powerful theme was also apparent to me throughout this book. It is that the market rewards execution of work, not the sharing of ideas. That (excuse the quoted profanity) “passion is bullshit” because it is not passion that drives us to success, but rather that passion is a product of it. He goes on to say that these goals, ideas, or passion are not some generalized concepts that either steer, guide us, or we reach once and complete our journey, but rather we set up a systematic way on a regular basis over time to achieve reasonable and measurable expectations we set for ourselves. Plainly stated, it is the point we stop imagining or saying what we want, and start putting words into action and doing it! And we have created the plan to actually execute to achieve it.

Chapter 21, The Math of Success, covered strategic, calculated ways to increase your chances at success. There is a section on pages 122-128 that give practical tips to sharpen conversation skills in social situations, including how to formulate a story. The basic parts of a story are listed as follows: Setup, Pattern, Foreshadowing, The Characters, Relatabilty, The Twist, and lastly Topics to Avoid. Based on the story structure and tips provided in the book, my exercise for the class would be to write a story to tell as part of a one-on-one or group conversation in a social setting of people you don’t know. The exercise would be conversation starter practice for learning to engage new people into further conversations for relationship building.

While I would not call it an ‘aha’ moment, the author’s fascination with affirmations was definitely my biggest surprise. It took me awhile to appreciate why he included it in this book and, ultimately for whatever personal meaning affirmations held or still holds for him, it was and is part of his success journey. With that being said, and despite his best and explicitly stated attempts at trying to explain it in order to keep his harshest critics at bay, I feel like he only made the arguably controversial topic for this book worse. For entrepreneurial practicality purposes, promoting self-belief and confidence in an ability to accomplish something is one thing. While maybe less honest, I wish he had stuck with that for the purposes of the book instead of acknowledging his obvious belief in some sort of mystical cosmic wish granting machine that he cannot explain.

Assignment 26A - Celebrating Failure

I was recently promoted at work, about two months ago. I am at the corporate offices now, and lead a team that supports all of our offices world-wide. It is a very dynamic time for our company, with significant growth, change, and opportunity. Sometimes, I still can’t believe I was able to land this gig. As I start to type up this assignment, I am sitting in business class of a Boeing Dreamliner on my way to Shanghai for my first international business trip with the company. But, these last couple months have not been without significant challenge. It is a completely new business that I am trying to learn, a new team, new technology, new…everything. I am quite literally trying to figure out what my organization does, how we do it, what we need, what we expect, what others expect of us, and most importantly (from my perspective) what they expect from me (and how to do it)!

One of many such expectations recently came from my VP. She wanted me to create a proposal for the new enterprise-wide departmental quarterly report, and she wanted it in two weeks. Wait a minute. You want the new guy who has no idea what we do here to create a company-wide, executive-level proposal showcasing what our department does?! I received some high level direction on what she wanted to see in the report, and was sent off to conquer the task! I did a lot of investigating and asking questions. What did we do? What was the impact? Who did that? Who is that? How did they do that? Why did we do that? The questions were endless. I didn’t know what I didn’t know. And, just when I thought I understood, it would become clear that I did not and I was back to the drawing board. And, let’s just say I did not get a lot of willing hands that raised up to help me (in reflection because I think most were just as intimidated by my task, and had just as many questions as I did). And, just when I thought I had it solved after about three weeks (1 week past the deadline) and after countless hours invested by myself and several of my team members, I took the proposal to my boss for review before it went to the VP. I was sent away defeated. Clearly my boss was expecting something more, or something different, and I felt like a complete failure.

There have been multiple times since I took this job that I thought I had made a mistake in accepting the role, that I am in over my head, and I need a quick exit plan. Just this past week, however, I am starting to believe maybe that pessimism was premature. The context for my research and proposal was based on the VP’s request, and the work I did was compelling enough that it made my boss challenge her own understanding of what our VP wanted. That need for clarity gained us a project extension until December. And, just yesterday as I sat next to my boss while she put the final touches on a presentation of her own for our VP, she said to me “I don’t know why I am trying so hard to make this perfect. It doesn’t matter anyway, because she [the VP] is going to rip it apart anyway!” Hearing that from my boss made me feel so wonderful that I was not alone!

I have always been willing to take risks, calculated risks that is, and this class really hasn’t changed my perspective on that. But how I think about failure I’ve experienced as a result of taking risk has been recently changed, or at least I’ve been reminded of what I had forgotten, especially after reading our third book requirement for the course. How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams reminded me that I need to manage illusions wisely, in order to effectively influence my self-perceptions. I have to remember I have a high level of responsibility (this is ranked my #2 Strengthfinder), and sometimes that high sense of responsibility can result in my assuming unrealistic self-expectations to my physical, mental, and emotional detriment. I needed to view the work example given in this post not as failure, but rather as feedback for how to move forward. The book also reminded me that I need to grant myself permission be selfish and take care of me first so I can be generous to others (work, family, friends, and community) in the long run. There is no benefit to anyone if my view of failure (and my fear of repeatedly doing so) drives me to work myself into the ground to the detriment of my work quality, stop exercising to the detriment of my health, and put work first to the detriment of my personal relationships.