This is the last episode of the first season of the lacix.co blogs. It will complete the series about the 7 core values we believe are important in any company, community or team. COLLABORATION. We want to work well together. CONTRIBUTION. We measure our success by how many people we helped. CONSISTENCY. We keep reusing what works. CONSOLIDATION. We unite goals and resources. COMMODITY. We buy the generic 80% and build the special 20%. CONTRAST. We are brave to see both sides of the coin. And finally: COMPLETION. We believe in completing our goals and bucket lists.
Introduction
When I was a child, I didn’t play to win games. I played football, tennis, table tennis, and a Scandinavian indoor hockey called floorball. I always enjoyed playing more than winning. Because when we focused on winning, usually we lost. When we as a team focused on playing a great game we mostly won.
After 35, I had to give up high impact sports, so started doing triathlon races for amateurs in Auckland, New Zealand. After a few sprint (shortest) races, I moved up with my friend Attila to the Olympic distance and I always just wanted to finish them. Completion was a good enough goal. During the race I really enjoyed the fresh air, the beautiful outdoors, the supporters cheering, seeing my race partners and doing it not to compete, but to complete. Then Attila asked me if I wanted to do a half-ironman race, so we trained for it and completed it. Then it was my turn to ask him to do a full Ironman race. We trained for it and completed it this year.
Why Complete instead of Compete?
There is a huge satisfaction coming from completion. But from the competition, there is never a good enough situation as there is always more to win. Or faster. Or with a higher margin. Never enough.
Same in business. If you race against your competitors, you never win. Win once, but they come after you and you are in the constant cycle of racing faster and faster. Your business can accelerate under pressure but break under too much pressure. Your team will burn out or you burn out. Then there is a rethinking, recovery and race again... This is a never-ending rat-race against time and outputs that are relative, always compared to something else.
On the other hand, if you have goals to complete you can achieve them and then you feel satisfied. If you don’t compare yourself with others, but with your past self, you always win. If your personal and/or business goal is long term, to become complete - you are on track to what Da Vinci designed… a “The Human360”.
HOW can you complete it?
You start looking at yourself, your products, your market, your team, your customers and your numbers differently. If you compare yourself and your organization not to another external entity, another person or organisation, but only to your past self, you can’t lose. If you improved, great. If not, there is a lesson to be learned. You slowly move up on the Maslow hierarchy until you as a person, business, non-profit, club or solopreneur complete your potential.
As an organisation, you can break down long term goals into smaller ones. So ideally you start from your 25-30 years legacy. Once you know what is your personal, organizational Great Goal, you can break it up top-down. But it is not easy to put a big outcome together from the pieces. You need a long term vision and a SINGLE GOAL that you might not know how to accomplish, but you see it as a destination.
Every day you complete a task, a project, a program and these add up into completed milestones and at the end into your legacy. In LACiX we believe in long-term planning, a big goal that helps to align and consolidate all the efforts by everyone. An unachievable goal like Google has unified thinking: “Our company mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Because it guides you in EVERY DECISION you make from small to large.
WHAT do you need in order to complete your goals?
In LACiX we believe you need a consolidated, circular system that starts from your values, vision and goals in the middle as a stable reference point.
These define your products and services according to your goals. When you complete the product design according to your vision, you promote your brand and fulfil the promises with a reliable team. That will result in loyal customers, only if you complete THEIR goals and support them on their customer journey from the very beginning to the very end.
Conclusion
If you focus on completing the game, instead of competing against others, you will quickly find satisfaction, joy from daily improvements. These add up into monthly results and quarterly milestones. Those add up in completing annual and decade, legacy milestones. You and your organization not just move up on the Maslow hierarchy, but complete the chosen game.
There is a lot of energy, focus and investment needed to build a company, community, personality that can go around at the same speed and complete the tasks, milestones consistently. But once you have done a full cycle of product development, market development, team development and customer development, you will end up doing it faster and better in the next cycle. With these lessons learned you can complete your business goals and personal bucket list.
About the Author
Laszlo Csite is a business/agile coach who helps gifted and keen leaders and teams to be extraordinary and fulfil their potential. He is also a digital/CRM product owner, who helps great ideas to grow into admired digital/physical products.
If you enter a new field, want to grow, acquire, transform or exit successfully - using proven methods can save you time and frustration.
When you are interested, I can show you how to COMPLETE your product, brand and team. I will share my 24 years of consulting experience and my carefully selected network of professionals with you.
If you find these articles interesting, invite me for a coffee or ask any questions: lacix.co