Persistence, Persistence, Persistence

So you have figured out that this is not a blog about ball bearings. Good start. Your IQ is likely above average and you are no more likely to succeed in your own business than my toaster oven (which, by the way, is quite a good invention and I do hope the entrepreneur that invented it is making a ton of money off royalties and is sitting on a beach in Tahiti sipping pina coladas and NOT reading this blog).

Since YOU are reading this blog, perhaps you are an entrepreneur, work for an entrepreneur, are married to an entrepreneur or are a future entrepreneur. If so, you might ask yourself (or need to be reminded), what is the recipe for success and entrepreneurial genius?

According to Thomas Palmer, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again." What he seems to be saying is that one should not give up too easily - that persistence pays off in the end. Hitting a nerve? Heard this before? Make any sense?  According to Thomas Edison, the recipe for genius is "one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration." Again, there is that pesky "persistence" concept - and from quite an entrepreneur! According to Dale Carnegie - not exactly an underachiever himself, "The quality that most frequently makes for success is flaming enthusiasm, backed up by horse sense and persistence." So why all this talk on my blog about persistence and the drive for success. There are three reasons, which are:

(1) I want to make it clear that I am interested in having this blog help in making both YOU and ME a success in whatever we are trying to do - or might try to do in the future.

(2) I want to give both YOU and ME a place to come back to when we are considering giving up or abandoning what we believe is otherwise a great idea.

(3) I want to explain to the naysayers in the world that if you are always encouraging folks to give up on their dreams, to take the road most traveled, or to limit themselves to 1 or 2 tries on a given idea, you will be contributing to the mediocrity in the world and not its progress, success and greatness.

Just a thought...

What is your success system?

Do you have a system or are you just winging it every day? Do you have goals? Do you have a yard stick against which to measure your level of effort and the outcomes? Consider the possibilities...

I just learned about a success system called the "Danaher Business System". Since the system helped grow a diversified technology leader by the same name from a start-up company in the early 1980s to one with over $12 billion in sales and over 50,000 employees around the world in 2008, I thought that it was worth a blog post for two reasons: (1) you might want to consider some of the tenets of the Danaher Business System and the Danaher Core Values which follow below for your business, and (2) while such a system is not so easy to conceive and to follow, it may increase your own success levels for you to have a system which you call your own - to run your personal life and/or from which to conduct your business affairs.

The system below is, of course, one example of a system and a set of corresponding values, but it does lend some credibility to know what a great business success it has produced. And, I would be remiss not to mention that one of the myriad of products sold by Danaher is their quality ball bearings. I will write more on my own system in later postings. In the mean time, enjoy the post...

DANAHER BUSINESS SYSTEM

Success at Danaher doesn't happen by accident. We have a proven system for achieving it. We call it the Danaher Business System (DBS), and it drives every aspect of our culture and performance. We use DBS to guide what we do, measure how well we execute, and create options for doing even better -- including improving DBS itself.

In the mid-1980s, a Danaher subsidiary faced with intensifying competition launched an improvement effort based on the then-new principles of lean manufacturing. The initiative succeeded beyond anyone's expectations - reinforcing the subsidiary's industry leadership as well as spawning the Danaher Business System (DBS). Since this modest beginning, DBS has evolved from a collection of manufacturing improvement tools into a philosophy, set of values, and series of management processes that collectively define who we are and how we do what we do.

Fueled by Danaher's core values, the DBS engine drives the company through a never-ending cycle of change and improvement: exceptional people develop outstanding plans and execute them using world-class tools to construct sustainable processes, resulting in superior performance. Superior performance and high expectations attract exceptional people, who continue the cycle. Guiding all efforts is a simple philosophy rooted in four customer-facing priorities: Quality, Delivery, Cost, and Innovation.

DANAHER CORE VALUES

The Best Team Wins

Associates are our most valued assets. We're passionate about retaining, developing and recruiting the best talent available. Danaher and its associates win because:

We are team-oriented with Involvement by all. We seek fact-based, root cause solutions; not blame. We are accountable for results, and we deliver. We are non-political and not bureaucratic. We have high integrity and respect for others. Winning is fun!

Customers Talk, We Listen

Quality First, ALWAYS! We base our strategic plan on the Voice-of-the-Customer. Robust, repeatable processes yield superior Quality, Delivery, and Cost that satisfy our customers beyond their expectations.

Continuous Improvement (Kaizen) is Our Way of Life

The Danaher Business System IS our culture. We aggressively and continuously eliminate waste in every facet of our business processes.

Leading Edge Innovation Defines Our Future

We continuously apply our creativity to the technologies of products, services, and processes. Out-of-the Box ideas, both large and small, add value to our enterprise. We accomplish "breakthroughs" through the Policy Deployment process.

We Compete For Shareholders

Profits are important because they attract and retain loyal shareholders.

To find out more about the quality ball bearings and other products offered by Danaher, please visit http://www.danahermotion.com/website/com/eng/products.php.

Who is Fletch and what are ball bearings?

In the classic 1985 comedy movie, "Fletch", the lead character by the same name (played by the actor Chevy Chase) wanders into an airplane hangar, picks up some tools and begins working on a LearJet. He is clearly not a mechanic, nor does he belong in the hangar. When pressed for his opinion on a certain technical matter by a pair of "real" mechanics, he responds “Oh c'mon guys, it's so simple, maybe you need a refresher course. It's all ball bearings these days.” Clearly, it’s not all about ball bearings, but Fletch's bravado and misguided technical reference works. No one calls his bluff and he is allowed to remain in the hangar. He has beat the system.

If I fast forward 25 years and change the venue to a conference room in Tysons Corner, Boston or Menlo Park, I am being bombarded with the same kind of bravado and technical references about: mobile advertising, social networking, the semantic web, switch grass, carbon nanotubes and also about outsourcing, insourcing and crowd sourcing. Unlike the mechanics in the movie, who are so easily duped by Fletch, I am being paid by my limited partners, not to fix airplanes, but to figure out who is merely full of bravado and misguided technical references and who actually has a promising business opportunity in the making that we might be able to invest in and return enough capital to our investors to beat out our competitors. Through this blog, I will attempt to chronicle the more interesting parts of my journey toward this end. It is possible that one of us will learn something from the experience. It is optimal that both of us will learn something...

If you want to find out more about ball bearings, you can check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_bearing.