“It’s a Swing and a Miss …!”
Sports are a big part of life for players and fans. Sports can consume weekends and represents a big chunk of profits for beer brewers, chip makers, hot dog stuffers and the myriad of commercial entities from logo-wear to HDTV manufacturers. We use sports as a handy metaphor for many examples, particularly the competitive type. I like them a lot, but there is one that is troubling if used inappropriately. It’s the misuse of the “Three strikes and you’re out” metaphor that may do more damage than good. We’ll come back to it in a bit.
Competitiveness means that we have a range of capabilities that enable us to outperform those striving for the same things, be they customers, jobs, attention, a prom date, or a race. We are better at something than others and are more likely to be rewarded. Becoming competitive is hard and sustaining competitiveness is harder still. Looking around the world today, it looks more challenging than ever. Jobs migration gets lots of press, but our competitive gap is growing in several areas. In some key engineering and manufacturing areas, essential areas, such as nuclear power plant components and high speed trains, going outside the US is currently our only option. What about the future? What else?
This Tuesday, President Obama addressed the youth of our nation. He delivered a powerful message about the power of education, hard work, and persistence. His charge to our youth was spot on, essential to their futures and our enterprises. I believe that more of our current and long term sustainable success will depend on accessibility to knowledgeable talent, ready to solve problems, than on macro stimulus or similar money booster shots may bring. Finding some of that talent today is a living nightmare for many leaders looking to shape the future.
Below are some of the President’s powerful remarks. They are equally powerful for us as we steer our enterprises and wrestle with transitioning our resource and talent mix with tomorrows needs, needs different than today’s. They are powerful because, regardless of how much enabling and prodding we may do, individuals must chose to invest in themselves, do what is hard, and become competitive talent.
- Personal responsibility to a larger cause; “We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most difficult problems. If you don’t do that – if you quit on school – you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country.”
- Shaping and creating the future; “Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.”
- Don’t give up, resilience, commitment to succeed, purpose; “The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough. It’s about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best.”
It sure did not sound like a “Three strikes and you’re out” message. The President’s speech is available at http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/09/07/obama.school.speech.pdf. I wonder if we quit too early on ourselves, give up on the third strike? Thomas Edison certainly did not in his search for an incandescent bulb, as countless other successful individuals and teams. Regardless of our political bias, knowledge, creating a better future and hard work sure sound like some great ingredients for cooking up competitiveness.
Would you like to pitch?
