Success

January 28, 2015

Multimedia In 2015

Are you striving to accomplish more, produce better products, and grow your business or department? If you’re not proactively looking to the future there’s a good possibility of being run over by your competition or even your boss. Even though I’m not in leadership in my department, I absolutely love looking to the future, and casting a vision is a solid first step. So, here is my vision for Multimedia in 2015.

Our Culture
To the rest of the company we are a reliable resource. We exceed expectations, we are responsive, and we are approachable. When someone visits our office they are encouraged and in a better mood by the time they leave. We show the same respect to someone when they leave that we showed them when they were present. No gossip. If you don’t have a solution that you are willing to initiate, then we won’t cripple our department and our company by talking negatively about someone when they aren’t present. This is an integrity issue. Our department will adopt this in spite of what everyone else does.

Our Imagery
The rest of the company is improved because of us. We provide beautiful, polished and compelling imagery to the Creative Department (which then gets put into catalogs, email banners, web graphics, social media channels, product pages and boxes), we catch possible production errors for product development, which will increase our customer satisfaction, and we create professional, well produced, effective, brand-building videos for product pages as well as social media channels.

Our Videos
All content we produce is to the highest standard we can produce. People see our videos and believe that a Hollywood production studio was hired to produce them. People see our images and product pages and believe that a professional design firm was hired to handle them. The imagery and videos encourage high conversion. It is constantly changing with the product line and the industry. It never gets boring or stagnant but is proactively and consistently evolving and improving.

Remember, this is a vision. All of these points may not be true, but that is perfectly fine! A vision should stretch you! It should drive you to want to be better and do more. Like me, you may not be in leadership. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t impact the culture around you! So, what is your vision for 2015? Are you striving towards more, or just reactively floating with the current?

December 17, 2014

The Trap of Least Resistance

We’ve all heard about “The path of least resistance.” As a teenager, all I heard in that phrase was “no fun for you!” Today, as a newly wed and fresh college grad, I understand why avoiding what that phrase entails not only means life, but a successful, fulfilled life. Following the path, or as I call it, the trap of least resistance has caused me serious pain. Read on to find out why, but most importantly, how you can avoid it.

Hakuna Matata
As a young college student I ventured out without a plan to pay for school, prepare for life after college, or how to get the most out of my time while attending. So, like many students today, I took a part time job and coupled that with Student loans. I had the H.O.P.E. scholarship, which covered most of my tuition, and the loans covered my living expenses. It was easy, stress free, and I didn’t have to think about it. Hakuna Matata. As a result, I graduated with loads of student loan debt which is a huge tax on my income today.

It Hurts!
This is the problem with the path of least resistance. It’s easy now, and may save you a little pain, but it always catches up. When it catches up, the pain is multiplied exponentially compared to what it would have been had you put forth the work of being intentional. I could have avoided the student loans with wise spending, saving, and working more hours. It would have been a little harder then, but it would have changed my life forever. Instead of living in a tiny apartment with my wife, we could be saving up for a big down payment on a house right now. Not to mention avoiding the pain of being the only one to bring debt into a marriage. Don’t follow the path of least resistance! It hurts!

You can avoid the pain that comes with this easy path. The key word is intentionality. Be intentional about how you live. Use your emotions as a gauge. How do you feel in your marriage, at work or at school? Is it easy? If so, it’s possible that you may just be in a good season. But I encourage you, strongly, take inventory. Assess your situation and see if there’s something you could be doing better, somewhere you could be working harder, somewhere you could be more effective. Don’t make the same mistake I made. Don’t just go with the flow!

Have you ever found yourself caught in the trap of least resistance? How did it affect you? What are your tips for escaping it? I would love to hear from you in the comments!

December 9, 2014

Unity: Secret Sauce to Success

I have different opinions than my boss. I don’t always agree with his decisions. If I sound like I am being insubordinate, you need to change your thinking, and here’s why:

We are all human, and we don’t always agree.
The element that separates winning teams from mediocre teams is not that winning teams agree. Instead, winning teams support leadership decisions, take ownership of their job, and don’t sabotage projects they don’t agree with. The element is unity, and it supersedes good ideas.

Unity trumps good ideas every time.
There is no shortage of good ideas. Entrepreneurs have good ideas every day. In my experience, the shortage is in unity. The boss makes a decision that the team may not agree with and, as a result, the team drags their feet. Rather than supporting the boss’ decision in unity, the goal is sabotaged by disunity.

Unity starts with you.
Unity will not happen by accident. Leadership should facilitate it, but often, they don’t do the best job. If this is the case, it’s your job to influence the culture around you. Give credit where it’s due. Be kind even when your coworkers don’t deserve it. Encourage everyone around you. Otherwise, problems just get worse. Then, when a project falls through, when a deadline gets missed or when your department falls short of expectations, everyone is held responsible. Facilitate unity, and succeed together.

What do you do that helps unity in your workplace? What about your home? I would love to hear from you in the comments!