With the arrival of the New Year, many of us make resolutions. One of mine is to take the advice Seth Godin offered in a recent blog post: “Practice looking in the mirror and saying, ‘Yes!’”
We have enough gatekeepers in our lives, especially in the workplace. I see it all the time in the supply chain management industry, and I am sure you see if in your place of work as well. People become too worried about potential failure and blame; as a result, they are reluctant to put their ideas out there.
But without fresh ideas, we would lose our ability to innovate and invent. Just last year, we came up with several enhancements to our service offerings as a result of some energetic brainstorming sessions. The most productive brainstorming occurred when each of us shared our ideas without fear of rejection. For example, we greatly enhanced our parcel toolbox and the value we provide to our parcel clients. We also came up with new ways to report and display information to our clients, building on the value of the data we capture for them regarding their transportation spend. In addition, we introduced a new product called Constellation TMS which is now being used by numerous customers. And there were other excellent ideas we built upon as a result of our team saying “Yes, we can!”
Our transportation management company began 30 years ago with just an idea, and has taken us places we never would have dreamed at the time. But what if we had squelched that idea 30 years ago instead of saying, “Yes!” to ourselves? What if we had operated out of fear instead of belief?
When our associates come to me with new ideas, I’m always excited to hear what they’ve been thinking about. My hope is that they don’t ever act as too tough of a gatekeeper to their own ideas and stop bringing them forward…or worse, stop even having them.
Of course, that doesn’t mean we should all say, “Yes!” to every idea we have, and it doesn’t guarantee all of them will be successful. But if you give the ideas you really believe in the chance they deserve, then each new year will have more valuable experiences to build upon than the last. Say, “Yes!” to your ideas in 2015!
