Personal Advancement
Change is constantI write a lot about change in the workplace, and that's because it's a constant. |
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 [ 2007-11-07 ] |
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It doesn't matter if you work in a corner store or for a big corporation, things are constantly changing -- be it technology, product, service, staffing, profit, regulations, taxation, or another facet.
The other morning I was reading a Canadian Press story about the Canadian technology phenom Research In Motion (RIM), maker of the near-ubiquitous BlackBerry and headed up by co-chief executive Jim Balsillie.
The Waterloo, Ont., based company is in the midst of a new push: looking to tap into small- and medium-sized businesses -- a market that it has not been able to capture on a large scale because of the cost of technology and installation needed to connect BlackBerrys through a workplace server.
"That's been a very untapped market. The BlackBerry has a nice penetration in there, but it's in rather specialized circumstances," Balsillie told the national news service.
His company has developed new, more streamlined software that is more affordable for smaller organizations and will allow handset users to access their e-mail, calendar, contacts, notes and task functions securely, on their company's server.
"You literally don't need IT support to install this. And this is very, very important for a small business because they don't have those resources in-house," Balsillie said.
RIM is the same company that turned its product on its head last year when it developed and successfully marketed the Black- Berry Pearl, a more consumer-oriented smartphone that tapped into the individual market, rather than the big-business market, and particularly targeted female users with its sleek design.
You might be wondering what my point is.
It is simply this: No matter how wildly successful you are as an individual, a company, or as an organization, it's not enough to sit back and let the product or service you offer work for itself.
You need to be constantly taking stock of where you are at in terms of a business plan, or in terms of your personal and professional goals, and make sure you're on the right track. If you reach your goals, you need to set more. If you out-perform your business plan, you need to adjust it in order to keep moving successfully forward.
Look, Balsillie and RIM could have left the business alone and still been successful with large corporations and a big share of the business and male-dominated smartphone market.
But they didn't, simply because they can't do that and continue to drive growth and market share, which is what will continue to improve the company's bottom line, and ensure security and success for its employees for years to come.
As individuals, we can't coast along in our jobs and relationships and expect to continue to experience success and all of the good things that come with that -- our personal bottom line, which really boils down to happiness.
This doesn't mean that our lives need to be run in the same manner as successful companies, but it does mean that we can learn lessons from people such as Balsillie and companies such as RIM, and take those lessons and adapt them to our daily lives and how we live them.
Do you have you a bad boss?