Back in the early 1990’s, on the first day in my new position as Marketing Director, one of the first things I learned was that our division was not permitted to grow to more than 4% marketshare; this because the entire corporation lost money one quarter due to the sudden crash in DRAM prices. This led to Motorola exiting the DRAM business, but eventually getting back in at the strong requests of our customers.
So, we reentered the market with the caveat that it would limit its exposure with a 4% market share cap. I was charged with bringing in new ways to grow our business. After having idea after idea shot down with the excuse that it would make us larger than 4% marketshare I decided something needed to be done. After all, with a battle cry of “no more than 4%” it was no wonder why morale was down, attrition was up and we had no mindshare or respect from the salesforce.
After studying the size of the market and all the major players I met with the division GM. I ask him if we had a snowball’s chance in hell of ever reaching 4%. He replied that even if we had all the resources and capacity available we could not come close. This gave me an idea. I left his office and typed up a letter that looked like it came from the Corporate office. It basically said that the 4% marketshare cap had been lifted. I took it to Bud, our GM, and asked him to share the “news” with the organization. He took exception and pointed out that it had not been lifted. I asked what difference it made if we could never reach 4%.
He got the message and shared the letter that the 4% cap had been lifted and that we could grow a big as we wanted… he left out the small fact that we’d never get there. Overnight, spirits lifted, morale improved, new ideas began to flow and the general performance of the organization began to pick up.
What was learned? Perception is 9/10th of the law.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” – Theodore Roosevelt – Excerpt from the speech “Citizenship In A Republic” delivered at the Sorbonne, in Paris, France on 23 April, 1910
INSPIRATION | Follow your heart
“Your time is limited so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by DOGMA, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice, and most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition – they somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” – Steve Jobs
Servant leadership is a philosophy and set of practices that enriches the lives of individuals, builds better organizations and ultimately creates a more just and caring world.
While servant leadership is a timeless concept, the phrase “servant leadership” was coined by Robert K. Greenleaf in The Servant as Leader, an essay that he first published in 1970. In that essay, Greenleaf said:
“The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions…The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types. Between them there are shadings and blends that are part of the infinite variety of human nature.”
“The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant-first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served. The best test, and difficult to administer, is: Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society? Will they benefit or at least not be further deprived?“
Sarcasm: The use of irony to mock or convey contempt… Anyone who has suffered from the sarcastic remarks of others will not be too surprised to learn that sarcasm, “a cutting remark,” comes from a Greek verb, sarkazein, that literally means “to tear flesh like a dog.” Very early, though, this Greek verb came to mean “to bite one’s lip in rage,” and “to gnash one’s teeth,” and finally “to sneer.”
The Greek noun sarkasmos, from which the English sarcasm comes, meant “a sneering or hurtful remark.” But even today sarcasm is often described as sharp, cutting, or wounding, recalling in a faint way the original meaning of the Greek verb.
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Back in the early 1990’s, on the first day in my new position as Marketing Director, one of the first things I learned was that our division was not permitted to grow to more than 4% marketshare; this because the entire corporation lost money one quarter due to the sudden crash in DRAM prices. This led to Motorola exiting the DRAM business, but eventually getting back in at the strong requests of our customers.
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