Sunday, November 8, 2009

I need to fill a prescription…

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about business philosophy as we have been debating various aspects of virtual work ideas with clients and prospects. What’s most fascinating is that everyone seems influenced by something from earlier in their career – maybe a good experience, maybe a bad one; maybe a mentor who inspired them or a particularly challenging person who left scars. With fascination comes reflection for me and it got me thinking about my business influences. When that happens I go back to my days at MCI Communications, founded in the late 60’s by Jack Goeken and Bill McGowan. Now I never knew Bill or Jack, but easily point to the Bill McGowan “4 Point Prescription for Success” as one of my greatest influences. “The McGowan Four”, as they’re commonly known, are brilliant in their simplicity: 1) Focus on priorities; 2) Act quickly, even if it’s risky; 3) Communicate up and down the organization to the point of excess and; 4) Treat technology as a slave and people as royalty. 

So do they apply to what’s going on with virtualwirks? Absolutely. Every new business is all about priorities, the problem is that they change by the minute. Bill’s lesson was that in a world with too many things that look like priorities, it’s important to narrow it down. For us, the only priority is to make our business sustain by earning our success every day, putting our customer first, and living up to our values. Everything else is just a task to get there. Acting quickly is not as easy as it looks. Bill’s message was to move ahead even when it looks scary and conventional wisdom suggests otherwise. It’s what made MCI a winner, and in a year when the rest of the global business world battens down against risk, we launched a company. Now as we look at our opportunities and face daily decisions, we can hear Bill’s wisdom speaking to us. Communication is the key to success in business and nowhere more so than in dispersed work, where people who don’t see each other have to make every communication count. When most people think telework, they worry about this most, and it’s one of our strengths. The last point in that prescription is the most brilliant of all. Technology is important and with so much of it doing great things for us, we often forget the hierarchy. In remote work, it’s really all about people. Teleworkers are special. They come from all over and bring unique stories, experiences, skills and needs. Every organization that finds them is richer for it. We’ve written here about the disabled, the older, the new graduate and beyond. It is for them we’re passionate and – as Bill pointed out – they’re royalty.

Bill McGowan died in 1992, and yet his philosophy endures among the many who worked there. I don’t know if he ever could envision the flat and limitless world we live and work in today, but I think he’d be as excited about all of its potential and its complexity as we are. And I imagine he’d prescribe the same thing he did at MCI. Four simple sentences, and limitless possibility. Take it several times a day, and thrive.

– Jim

1. Trisha says:

   April 11, 2011 at 11:14 am

   Glad I’ve finalyl found something I agree with!