Miller's Monday Morning Message
presented by ACM Consulting Inc.

Andrew Miller on strategy, operations, life balance and everything in between

Toronto - June 20, 2011 – 22-year-old Rory McIlroy won golf's prestigious U.S. Open major title yesterday. What was amazing about his victory is how many scoring records he broke and who held those records. Tiger Woods has been golf's phenomenon for more than a decade and it was hard to believe we might see someone exceed his talents and abilities. Then comes McIlroy, shattering Tiger's record for lowest score at a U.S Open and winning the tournament at a younger age than both Tiger and Jack Nicklaus. So what can we learn from this? That people with great abilities learn from their failures (McIlroy blew a lead at another major, the Masters, earlier this year). In order to succeed, you need to fail. If you are not failing then you are not trying anything new and not developing yourself both personally and professionally. When you fail, you learn something that will help you succeed next time around. If you remain status quo, then it is only a matter of time before you become obsolete. That is why golfers are always working on their swing and why successful companies are always developing new products and services for their customers.
 
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For the success of any business, engagement and leadership must come from the top down. This does not mean that only top management can lead an organization or its initiatives, but it is very hard to drive change when the CEO is not engaged. Having worked with dozens of companies over the years, I have seen the difference between success and failure. Failure looks like a time-consuming, important initiative that has no sustainability. Failure looks like a lot of money and effort spent with no long-term impact on the organization. Failure looks like a waste of the organization's time and money. Failure looks like a de-motivated workforce and internal battles. But enough about failure, what does success look like?

Success looks like an initiative that is championed by individuals or team from all levels of the company. Success looks like a change that creates long-term benefits for the organization. Success looks like something that outlives the CEO's tenure. Success looks like people being engaged and passionate about their organization.

Many times the difference between success and failure is the level of support and engagement from the CEO. CEOs are there to inspire, to lead, to provide direction, to communicate, to make hard decisions and to engage employees and business partners. Without that, organizations cannot expect to implement initiatives successfully.