A summertime highlight is the smells and sounds of the 4th of July holiday. Regardless of venue, neighborhood, city, state, forest, campground, lake, parking lot and any number of other gathering places, we all celebrate the 4th of July with great eats, beverages, and music. The freedoms we enjoy are best expressed in celebrations of culture.
Month: June 2021
When I look at businesses, organizations, people who are making things happen, one word tends to recur in my mind – relentless. These entities and people are relentless on many levels. They are relentlessly optimistic. A failure does not set them back it educates them, and they push forward. They are relentlessly pursuing action. They take the steps others are either not willing to take or are over thinking if they should take them. They are relentless finding ways to be more effective and efficient. The status quo is not part of their vocabulary nor their day-to-day efforts.
It is easy to find the gloom and negativity which is pervasive in the digital world and various media platforms. Some days it seems that is all our world is about. Some rationalize it under the umbrella of news, yet others can take it to new lows under the guise of the end of civilization as we know it. STOP and use your senses to live. Breathe in the air, smell the roses, touch another human being’s hand, taste the sweetness of the nectar of fruit juice and hear the chirping of birds in trees. All of these stimulate the positive in our physical and emotional senses.
Any successful endeavor requires a team of people to pull it off. Whether you are a solopreneur or a multi-location mega business, it is never a one-person success show. It takes a variety of different talents orchestrated together in just a particular way that allows for the greatest outcomes. Unfortunately, organizations struggle with this concept of teams and success. They get it intellectually, but they do not necessarily execute it behaviorally.
The culture we are currently navigating tends to be laden with many points of division rather than points that unify. It appears that points which divide are elected not because they are in the best interest of society but rather because they exist on the path of least resistance. When selecting the easy path, it comes without any self-reflection and self-control. It discounts respect for all humanity and places self-gratification at the center of the decision-making model.
As we approach the end of the 2nd quarter of 2021 this is a good time to pause and evaluate the ebb and flow of the business. 2020 was filled with new unknowns as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. 2021 is rolling forward in the midst of coming out of that set of unknowns into a new marketplace which has new and different expectations of our clients and customers.
Technology, science, knowledge have brought forth many unbelievably valuable things into our culture. One such aspect of these contributions is the open availability of opinion. We as members of the culture we live inside of must use these same elements of technology, science, and knowledge to evaluate and bring truth and trust to the opinions they created.
I was recently asked to come into an organization because they were looking to perpetuate the asset to the next generation of family members. I had no prior knowledge of the business or family dynamics. That is not necessarily uncommon but is always a critical part of determining if JKL Associates can bring the proper value to the opportunity or if the prospect would be better served by an alternate provider.
In a time when it is easiest to point or redirect issues toward our culture and blame it for what is going on around us, we need to recall that we are the ones to hold accountable for our culture. Our culture reflects both the good and evil in our society and as members of the community we are personally responsible for the culture we live inside of.