Posts filed under ‘Leadership’
Every Salute Must Be Earned!
Last week, I attended the swearing in ceremony of a friend Peter Jean-Louis as second lieutenant in the US Navy. Along with the fact that how Peter got to become a lieutenant was inspirational enough, I learned during the ceremony about a long Navy tradition called the first salute.
But first, let me tell you about Peter. ..
He immigrated to the US on January 10, 2000 to be reunited with his mother. She left Haiti when Peter was three and he did not meet her again until he was 18 years old. Peter’s father had left Haiti to look for work in Martinique before his mother went to the US. As a result, Peter was raised by his grandmother, a lady who did not know how to read or write. Ironically, Peter’s grandmother turned out to be his greatest inspiration in the pursuit of higher education. She impressed upon him the importance of education and always motivated him to do better.
In 2000, the same year Peter immigrated to the US, he enrolled in a technical school in Miami where he met a retired Army Officer who encouraged him to join the military to take advantage of educational opportunities. A year later, in 2001, he enlisted in the Navy. At first, everything seems complicated; it seems as if Peter landed on a different planet. He was dealing with a double whammy: He was not completely assimilated in the US, including not speaking English proficiently, and yet he had to assimilate into a military way of life. Eventually, it did not take long for him to realize that success in the military required commitment, discipline, and great work ethic. Peter quickly progressed through the ranks, from E1 to E5 in five year.
Early on in his military career, Peter decided that he wanted to become an officer. The Navy offers a level playing field to all enlisted members who want to progress through the enlisted ranks or become an officer, and provides many incentives for enlisted members who decide to pursue higher education. These incentives include tuition assistance, and scholarships.
As Peter progressed through the ranks, he was also enrolled in college during his off time. In 2006, he became eligible to apply for a full scholarship through the Navy’s Medical Service Corps to study pharmacy. Enlisted members who are granted this scholarship and who complete the PharmD program are subsequently commissioned in the Navy to the rank of Lieutenant (O-3). This scholarship is highly competitive and the process of application includes obtaining the recommendation of several leaders within the command the members is attached to. This process also includes scrutiny of the member’s performance through the years, including demonstrated leadership development, community involvement, and academic achievement. In 2007, Peter was accepted in the scholarship program and attended Campbell University from 2008 to 2012. He graduated with honors with a doctorate in pharmacy (PharmD) on May 11, 2012 and subsequently was commissioned as a Lieutenant in Navy Medical Service Corps.
Back to the Navy tradition of the first salute!
Apparently, this tradition dates back to the 19th century. According to the tradition, a new officer must give a silver dollar to the enlisted member giving him the first salute. The idea is that the newly minted officer needs to buy his first salute and earn every salute after that through his or her performance.
I like this tradition of the first salute because it reminds us that a leader does not deserve respect based on his or her position in the organization but based on the work of the leader: including maximizing the performance of the team under his or her leadership, helping those under his/her leadership to become better individually or creating possibilities for higher achievement that would not happen without the leader’s presence.
Resources Needed Are Often Overestimated
“You can often do with the limited resources you have…”
To get most goals accomplished, there are 3 key elements: time, energy and resources. For example, to open a small business, no one would argue that success doesn’t come overnight or deny the fact that it requires a lot of work from the founder(s). It doesn’t hurt either to have access to some resources, chief among them CASH but also people resources (not necessarily employees; these can be advisors or mentors specially the ones doing it for free in the early part of a business). The same could be said of becoming an expert, a skilled artist or buying one’s first home.
We humans have a tendency to overvalue the resources necessary to achieve a goal.
Consider for example, the MessagePad by Apple and the Palm Pilot. It took $500M to develop the prototype for the MessagePad but only $3M for the Palm Pilot. Why did it take so much to develop the MessagePad compared to the Palm Pilot? (It think it may have something to do with Apple had that much money to spend).
I think this tendency to ”throw” as much money onto something happens way too often with government agencies, non-profit organizations, companies, entrepreneurs, CEOs, students and in fact with most of us including this author. How many times have you heard people complain that they could have succeeded if they had more money or more connections?
The very fact that we see day in and day out start-ups with meager resources take over large companies that should have squashed them is a testament that time/energy can overcome what we might call lack of resources. Think of companies like Google, Amazon, Facebook, Netflix, Redbox, Apple, Microsoft…Each of these companies should have been eliminated by their better funded competitors: Google by Yahoo, Amazon by Barnes and Noble; Facebook by Google or any other established Internet company; Netflix by Blockbuster; Apple by Microsoft/IBM and Microsoft by IBM.
A sad consequence of this is that many worthwhile dreams die prematurely because of the illusion that resources are lacking. Energy (that we can call passion which in turns can fuel ingenuity and bring about hard work or time commitment) can often cure this little problem of so called “lack of resources”. When the dreams don’t die prematurely, their achievement might come at too high of a price because we want to “borrow” the resources we don’t have. While I don’t have the stats to prove it, I have no doubt that many entrepreneurs could have built their companies by bootstrapping instead of having to borrow or take on Venture Capital money as early as they did. (Just because you can get the money doesn’t mean you need to get it; just because you have the money doesn’t mean you have to throw it at the problem).
Some questions that might be useful to ask when going after a goal that might require significant resources:
- Have others achieved similar goals with limited or less resources than I have?
- Can I copy their models?
- Is it possible that I have more resources compared to others pursuing similar goals? Could that be a limiting factor (stymieing ingenuity for example)?
- What existing resources that I have that may be unique that I could leverage? For example, if I don’t have the financial resources, could I leverage my social capital (connections)? What do I bring to the pursuit of this goal that’s unique to me or my organization?
