I have always liked to be at the cutting edge of technology and was quick to change our business model to keep up with the latest tech developments. We have always led the way as it has been our goal to make it harder for our competitors to beat us in any deal, and for that we had to raise the bar.
Success comes when you can spot the next trend or adapt to difficulties created when serious problems happen in your Company.
Although I have often relied on my gut, when I weighed the alternative routes, I was actually connecting the dots. I would be unable to explain this had my hero Steve Jobs of Apple fame not given his famous Stanford Commencement Speech in June 2005.
He told three stories. The first was called “Connecting the Dots.” He talked about how when he left college, he started noticing labels and banners that had beautiful hand calligraphy; so, he decided that in his free time, he would attend a course. This is where he learned about typefaces and how they used variable spaces. Ten years later when he was designing the first Macintosh computer, he remembered this course and designed all the fonts to have smooth outlines and proportionate spaces between the characters. Windows copied him, and thus all computers have beautiful fonts, which would never have happened had he not taken a calligraphy course.
As he said “You can’t connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backward. So, you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut. Destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path. And that will make all the difference.”
As Lewis Carroll wrote in Alice in Wonderland:
Cat: “Where are you going?”
Alice: “Which way should I go?”
Cat: “That depends on where you are going.”
Alice: “I don’t know”
Cat: “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.”
CONNECT THE DOTS
Some incidents that happened to me as described in my new book ‘Raise the Bar, Change the Game’ illustrates how I used this ‘methodology’ throughout my working life, and I urge you to do so as well. In 1987 I first went to Hungary to look for new markets. I had the feeling that glasnost and perestroika or openness between the Soviet Union’s president Mikael Gorbachev, the US President Ronald Reagan and the UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher who could deal with each other would ultimately lead to the fall of the Berlin Wall. This would stop the Cold War and open up the former Communist Bloc to Western capitalism. Sure enough, having joined the dots it did fall in 1989 and I was able to start joint ventures in 5 countries there providing barcode solutions.
Another situation happened when I visited the German Embassy in London in the early 80’s looking for product opportunities. They showed me a brochure including barcodes coming from a Company who plotted a barcode very accurately onto film for printing onto products. These were called Film Masters and were to form the platform of launching my first Company as I could join the dots: barcodes, printing paper, artwork, printers basically selling new things to existing customers.
Bringing these opportunities more up to date I have connected the dots between a barcode and an RFID (radio frequency identification) chip which are both sensors. They can be harnessed to collect data 24/7. As such that makes them part of the ecosystem that is the Internet of Things or Industry 4.0. Even more up to date is the Blockchain or Tangle from IOTA which will provide a decentralized, immutable ledger that will eliminate fraudulent products, disrupt the supply chain and the financial system. I am figuring out how to add these to our traditional barcode solutions so we can continue changing the world.
What I’m saying is that you have to keep the big picture in mind, all the time. If I had focussed only on a small part of the market and our position in it I wouldn’t have seen the bigger opportunities.
It’s the legendary story of the three stone-cutters:
One day a traveler, walking along a lane, came across three stone-cutters working in a quarry. Each was busy cutting a block of stone. Interested to find out what they were working on, he asked the first stone-cutter what he was doing.
“I am cutting a stone!”
Still no wiser, the traveler turned to the second stone- cutter and asked him what he was doing.
“I am cutting this block of stone to make sure that it’s square and its dimensions are uniform so that it will fit exactly in its place in a wall.”
A bit closer to finding out what the stone-cutters were working on, but still unclear, the traveler turned to the third stone-cutter. He seemed to be the happiest of the three, and when asked what he was doing, he replied, “I am building a cathedral!”
Connecting the dots is not without risk. Every time I did so, executing my ideas was risky. You must have a risk mindset. I always found it helpful to ask, “What’s the worst that can happen if I fail?” The answer was that I’d be back where I started. If I went bust, I could always pick myself up and start over again. I developed a plan B in case things went wrong and could change my strategy if I needed to.
Finally, I asked myself how I’d feel if I didn’t go forward. Would I regret it for the rest of my life? One of my many mantras is that I have no regrets at all in life, nor will I ever. Never look backward; look forward. Have the courage of your convictions and generate your own self-confidence by ticking off goals and achievements. Recognize that failure is good—provided you learn from it— and always remain positive and mix with positive people.
So, keep your eyes open, carry the big picture with you, accept data gleaned from everywhere that relates to your business, and dare to think the unthinkable. Trust your gut and follow your heart; keep looking and don’t settle.