Hi my name is Motoi Tobita, the founder of Global Optimum. Corp.
I support people who is or have been in Japan and doing business in Africa.
I assume that you have some professional skills/knowledge.
I also assume that by using the skill/knowledge, you work for a company, for a government, or launch your own company. Some of you may be still studying, but you know that you will eventually work in near future.
Let me clarify my audience. There is a large gap between having a skill/knowledge in a particular area and being successful in the area. You want to know what the gap is and how to fill it.
If that is the case, it shouldn’t be a waste of time to read the rest of the page.
Okay, let’s discuss some typical gaps and the direction to fill them.
In the following discussion “You” means an ordinary/average person.
You have a skill/knowledge. When you have it, a typical pitfall is to try to use the skill/knowledge, and using it becomes your goal. But nobody buys it. People want you to solve the problem!! Therefore, you need the skill TO ANALYZE AND DEFINE THE CORE PROBLEM. You many analyze yourself, an organization, or a whole country. Whatever the scope is you need to understand the reality and to be able to clearly define the problem to solve.
However, defining a problem and solving the problem are different things. If the problem has been long-lasting, there is a reason for that. In other words, if the problem is easy to solve, then somebody else should have already been solved it. In many cases, a long-lasting problem associate with a dilemma. What’s that mean? If we choose one action, you get something good, but at the same time, you need to give up something. If we choose a different action, you get what has been given up, but now you lose the good part.
Let me give you and three examples from very distant cases.
1. In a manufacturing company, purchasing people want to buy the cheapest part to minimize the production cost. Engineers want to buy the most reliable part to minimize the quality problem and maximize performance. Both needs make sense. How the purchasing policy should be?
2. No competitive edge of a company lasts forever. To make a number (sale, profit) for this year, you need to focus on activities that bring money within a year or less. At the same time, to build future competitiveness, you need to invest your resource in a new business project. Almost no company in the world has plenty of resources, especially aces. How should we allocate the resources to fulfill short term profit and long term prosperity at the same time?
3. Once a company grows to a certain point, one super-person can’t do everything. To expand a business, you need to educate and train people so that an important part of company operation is executed by others. But, soon, you realize that it is not easy at all to educate someone to the level of you. May you want to consider bringing good people from outside. However, this is usually costly, and finding a capable person is not easy at all. How we can secure enough super people?
There are more and more cases of dilemma. Here the skill you need is TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM CREATIVELY.
You are so happy that you’ve solved a long-lasting problem creatively. This should certainly give your organization some competitive strength. But, so many times, what some of you (CEO and managing directors) have thought about are not understood by others at all. There is a simple test for it. After you think you conveyed your message, simply ask a person “what did you understand?”. You will be surprised. (This is aside, but the same thing happens in your family as well. The father or mother tells their kid something. Ask him/her what the father or mother just told. I’m so sure that the important logic of the talk has been lost.) To avoid such a problem, you need the skill TO MAKE OTHERS UNDERSTAND YOUR MESSAGE.
You have defined the core problem, solved the major dilemma creatively, and conveyed your idea. Nevertheless, so little of great ideas are not put into execution because there are plenty of reasons, they can’t do this. I’m telling you that this is a great thing. So many people give up their great idea just because there are obstacles and they don’t how to overcome them. In other words, if only you overcome them, you create a high and strong wall against competitors to get into your area of business. To realize it, you need the skill TO MAKE AN EXECUTION PLAN BY REVERSING OBSTACLES.
Now it is a big but at the same time a realistic project. The bigger the project, the more people have to be involved. The people may be in your organization or outside of your organization. Each person/organization has its interest. A fascinating idea for you may not be another person’s interest at all. Without involving many stakeholders, your project may not succeed. To win cooperation from others you need to learn how to think by putting yourself into other people’s shoes. This is said easily, but not easy to do without knowing the process. The skill you need is TO CREATE SUPPORTERS BY THINKING LIKE OTHERS.
Even after you’ve mastered all the above skills, I’m sure you fail a lot. This simply means that you are a true challenger trying to achieve something big. We just need to keep learning from it, identify the core missing thought, and make improvements in your next challenge. By only this way, you can make a change in your future. For this, you need the skill TO THINK TOUGH AND CHANGE A PINCH INTO AN OPPORTUNITY.
In summary, there are six core skills to make your personal and professional life successful.
1. TO ANALYZE AND DEFINE THE CORE PROBLEM
2. TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM CREATIVELY
3. TO MAKE OTHERS UNDERSTAND YOUR MESSAGE
4. TO MAKE AN EXECUTION PLAN BY REVERSING OBSTACLES
5. TO CREATE SUPPORTERS BY THINKING LIKE OTHERS
6. TO THINK TOUGH AND CHANGE A PINCH INTO AN OPPORTUNITY