The Sunday Mail
Hunt for Greatness
Milton Kamwendo
Intentionality is key to greatness. Merely and blindly doing what you do is barely enough. Doing your job and watching the clock tick away is not enough if you dream of greatness. Time is the ultimate resource of life. If you use it well, you are oiled for greatness.
It is not right to be a mindless passenger in life. Doing something without thinking is barely enough. Thinking without doing is fruitless exertion. By all means, keep doing something creative.
Creativity is birthing new ideas and turning thoughts into things that could be expressed in multiple dimensions. Creativity clothes thoughts. Do not stop thinking and imagining what you could do. Do not stop putting a demand on your potential. Do not stop expressing greatness.
Creativity and innovation are related but they are not the same. Innovation is “applied and channelled creativity”.
It is turning a creative idea into a product, service or concept that has value. Innovation is doing or creating something with a difference, which matters enough for someone to be willing to pay for it.
If it does not have some positive impact, it is just a mere creation. The challenges, pain points and deficits in life are too important to be left to chance. Choose to invest quality time into thinking and exploring possibilities.
Compared to the future, the past could easily be called blissful. The momentum and pace of change has been gathering strength. At first, the game of business and life could be likened to soccer. The formations were known and clear. The spectators were expectant and the match officials knew their positions and roles. Everyone turned up to play and watch. Then, without notice, everyone turned up on match day ready for soccer, only to find that the game had changed to a hybrid of rugby and basketball. And this trend, where the rules of the game change overnight, has been in cascading motion for a long time.
Joseph Schumpeter, in his 1942 book, described the phenomenon of change, where the old is replaced with the new, as creative destruction. The old and inefficient are destroyed by new, innovative and efficient products and services. This force of creative destruction continues to drive industries, products and services. It also spurs entrepreneurship and novelty.
If you do not innovate, you are at risk of creative destruction’s forces. Doing things by the old and tired rules leaves you vulnerable to change, attack and extinction.
Innovation requires you to wake up every day with the full knowledge that what you knew yesterday may be irrelevant today. You should bear in mind that your security is in creating, learning daily and growing all the time. You are truly disabled when you are no longer able to learn and grow.
The challenge of change is that the systems, products, knowledge and skills of today become tomorrow’s liabilities.
Having mastered the art of dribbling and manoeuvring the ball in soccer, this skill could really be a drawback when the game suddenly changes to a blend of basketball, volleyball and cricket, without rule-change notice.
Innovation does not shout; it whispers. Mindlessly doing and ignoring change is not enough. Only the proud and ignorant are content with remaining where they are.
Challenge what you see. Reflect on what you know. Demand impossible leaps in performance. All decay can be traced to a state of mind.
Unless all you know is being challenged to its roots, you are probably underlearning. Think about the things you need to unlearn as much as the things you require to learn. Innovating is the art of impactful forgetting.
When I joined my first formal employer after graduating from university, I worked as a graduate trainee. The programme was comprehensive and an essentials-of-banking journey. Among the early skills to be mastered were how to sort, tick and reconcile customer statements.
These statements had to be mailed to customers, together with the paid cheques. The mail room was an essential bus stop. Understanding the use and management of the franking machine was a must. I learnt more. Looking back, the practice of banking today has changed so much. Every day brings a challenge to unlearn, learn and keep learning.
Doing is not enough; you have to question what you are doing and its value to your customer. Ask sincere questions and do not run away from them. When you run away from questions, you are running away from growth.
Pretending that things are working, when they are not, leaves you vulnerable to extinction. Nothing you do should be insulated from the power of laser-sharp questions.
Questions challenge the status quo and reveal the hidden cobwebs and rotting skeletons.
If you do not face your reality, change will expose your nakedness. Change is inevitable.
Doing is not enough if you are not taking time to question what you do. You may wake up to find yourself doing what no longer requires to be done at all.
Doing what you have always been doing in the same old way leaves you bored, tired and demotivated. This is because you are likely to produce results that are inferior to the ones you got the last time round.
Network with other people and see things from other perspectives.
Get out of the building – Walk around, look, learn and observe.
Rise above the stinking negative thinking. Going through life in a blind stupor and drunken mindlessness is not a fashionable proposition for anyone.
Refuse to be hemmed in by past boundaries. Keep stretching, becoming better and more impactful.
Keep reaching for new goals and attempting fresh and bold possibilities. You can do great things. You just have to dare take great steps. Go for greatness and do what you have to do today.
Committed to your greatness.
Milton Kamwendo is a leading international transformational and motivational speaker, author and a virtual, hybrid and in-person workshop facilitator. He is a cutting-edge strategy, team-building and organisation development facilitator and consultant. His life purpose is to inspire and promote greatness. He can be reached at: [email protected] and his website is: www.miltonkamwendo.com
