“Too fast you lose touch with reality, too slow you miss the opportunity. Stay in tune, be present & make returns.”
It’s been a weekend of rest, regeneration and refocusing. As we move into the next week it’s worth noting that driven by our resolutions for the new year, chances are that we’ve been super focused on achieving them with little downtime. This has a risk of resulting in burnout which isn’t good for anyone. Your goals need you to be at your best to realize and celebrate achieving them. What’s the value of working for a goal and realizing it just to be no more? I doubt there is.
In the last week I had a conversation with a friend and in the pharmaceutical industry with a focus on pharmaceutical quality. In this conversation, one of the key issues that came up was the fact that most quality concerns that are often experienced in the market arise from being hooked on production and meeting targets. When this happens, there’s little downtime in the production line which serves as an important moment for maintenance work, clean up and validation processes. When the demand is at peak, most companies would rather continue their production to meet these needs in volumes but then risk compromising on quality. This is one thing that they have worked on as a company to ensure that their production processes are as per the current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMP) with a commitment to ensuring that they are aligned to their mission of improving access to affordable quality medicines.
Failure to comply with maintenance specifications which not only applies to machines but also to humans who need time to recharge, re-equip and retrain then the quality & productivity is at stake in the long term. Reflecting on this, I was reminded of Howard Schultz, former Starbucks CEO who at the peak of the 2008 recession when he got back to running the company instead of focusing on finding options to continue with normal operations, went into retraining of employees to ensure they were at their best to realize their mission in the long term which I wrote about in the People Business. As we get into the new week, it’s important to acknowledge that in the process of pursuing our plans, visions and goals we have a reason to not move to quickly but not too slow. In the business world, one of the critical attributes one needs to factor is timing. A product that gets into the market at the right time serves it’s purpose, gets a market and reaps substantial returns for the entrepreneur. As Abigail Johnson says in an interview with David Rubenstein, you need to look ahead into the horizon to know what is likely to be the next big thing, position yourself either to tap into the opportunity or to stay ahead not to suffer the cost of being caught off-guard. Be agile but present.
Have a great week ahead:-)