New source for inspiration and wisdom will surprise you.
Survival mode is a familiar place for way too many business managers. It’s not a place you want to visit often or want to be in very long. Once in it though, you want nothing more than to be out of the woods in a hurry. But what if reaction speed just isn’t your strong suit. In this post, I introduce a short new book that focuses squarely on improving the efficiency of survival. Call it the last frontier in business optimization. With the help of this wonderful little book, you might discover that it may not be the fastest or even the strongest that emerges unscathed, as much as the one who knows to stay the course and go the distance.
Faced with the imminent danger of losing the business, managers will naturally employ whatever skills they can muster to survive—and they don’t look back. But we could be back, right? Any business leader worth his salt is conditioned enough to know that there’s really no such thing as security. The potential perils in business, both known and unknown are uncountable. They’re also increasing.
What’s our defense? Sometimes it’s experience but usually it’s attitude. “We will survive … whatever it takes! And we’ll pull out all of the stops to do just that.” Now think about how inefficient that sounds. What are the stops that you’re referring to? If you actually know, perhaps you should be letting the leadership team in on the secret. Are there specific skills we should know about? What if we could hone those skills?
The book asks,
“What animal are you?”
“Surviving Your Serengeti—Seven Skills to Master Business and Life” uses a modern day fable to explain how unique skills have allowed certain animals to survive and thrive the Serengeti Plains of East Africa. Each year, two million wildebeest, zebras and gazelles run a 1,000-mile journey facing hunger, thirst, predators and exhaustion. It’s a “journey so incomparably dangerous and massive that it is often rated the number one natural wonder of the world.” What’s so cool is that the Serengeti isolates core survival skills so unmistakably. (So that they can be honed.)
We all possess skills we don’t know we have, or never fully develop. The book helps you find the important one, your inner beast. The cheetah is a great example. Here’s a machine that uses efficiency to finish a job in the shortest time with a minimum amount of wasted energy and resources. It’s one of the reasons the author, Stefan Swanepoel, refers to the “journey” as a “parable for success”—in business and in life.
What’s more? You can find your beast now.
It’s a captivating story that puts an uptight traveling businessman’s Blackberry in a new perspective. Surviving Your Serengeti explains why “you must identify your unique survival skill so that you can maximize your full potential.” If you would like to know now, up front, before you acquire the book, go to “What animal am I?” Take the brief personality test and find out who you really are. I’m betting that if you turn up to be a mongoose we’ll be seeing another donation to the African Wildlife Foundation.
HIT Solutions believes the more your business keeps up with important trends, the more you will improve your product, and improve your bottom line.
Leave me your comments below; share your thoughts.
For every copy of Surviving your Serengeti that is sold, part of the proceeds are donated to the African Wildlife Foundation.