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Rev Albert Ocran
Rev Albert Ocran

A culture of creative excellence - wisdom keys for emerging business leaders

We live in a rapidly-changing world characterised by socioeconomic uncertainty and keen competition. The challenges individuals, organisations and nations face today are largely unprecedented and many of them could not have been predicted a decade ago. Mantrac, the official distributor of caterpillar equipment in the country, has been operating for the past 78 years in Ghana. Maxwell Akalaare Adombila of the GRAPHIC BUSINESS (GB) caught up with the Managing Director, Mr Emad Adeeb (EA), and first asked him how Mantrac Ghana is faring currently?

There is therefore the need for a new kind of positioning from what has previously pertained in order to remain relevant and competitive.

Excellence is variously defined as exceptional or outstanding. However, for our purposes we will define excellence as "a quality that is unusually good and surpasses ordinary standards.

“Creativity, on its part, refers to "the use of imagination or innovative ideas." Creative Excellence could therefore be said to be "the use of imagination and innovative ideas to consistently generate world-class quality in our endeavours." That should be the preoccupation of every emerging business leader.

Culture is “an observable and powerful force in any organization or collective entity.” It refers to the way things are consistently done in a place. Every individual, educational institution, workplace or nation therefore has a culture of its own.

A person with a culture of creative excellence consistently gets exceptional quality or world-class results through the use of imagination and innovative ideas.

How does one inculcate this “culture of creative excellence?” Is it learnable? Are there related tools or attributes that can bring the individual to the fore and put them on the road to success?

Let me give you five keys wrapped around the acronym D-A-T-E-S. The five tools or pillars of success for emerging leaders are Deliberateness, Attitude, Time-Management, Energy and Social Networks.

  1. Deliberateness: In my days at Mfantsipim School our chaplain, Reverend Churcher had a penchant for telling great stories in his sermons. I still remember him for a classic illustration he put out about choices and consequences. He said that each of us had two options on the road of life. He used Akan terminology to explain them.

The first option was “So So, Kyin Kyin” which literally translates as “softness before hardness” or choosing the easy route before the difficult one.

The second was the reverse. “Kyin Kyin So So” was simply “hardness before softness” or what others would call in Ghanaian parlance “Suffer to gain.” He admonished us to choose the second option of deliberately enduring hardness and laying a good foundation in order to enjoy ourselves later in life.

Lay strong foundation today if you want to build your life into a skyscraper. The foundation suitable for a one-storey would collapse if you later try to add more floors to it. Invest in yourself at the inception of this journey.

Success is deliberate. The pyramids of Egypt, the leaning tower of Pisa and Sun City in South Africa were not constructed by accident. No significant achievement in life can be attributed to luck or chance.

Many of my colleagues and classmates who have gone on to achieve success all over the world began to show glimpses of intent right at the onset. Make the hard choices required today and you will become an achiever tomorrow.

  1. Attitude: What makes a champion different from the average person? Do they have more skills or expertise? Are their circumstances perfect? Are they endowed with exceptional natural talents? Do they have more money or greater opportunities? Or, is it simply good luck? The answer is that none of these things by themselves can create a champion. In fact, most of today’s greatest achievers and business leaders have had to deal with significant challenges. So, what makes the difference?

Studies show again and again that the difference is the champion's attitude. True champions have a positive outlook or attitude - an unfailing belief that focused; consistent effort will yield successful results.

The most powerful and predictable motivator for success is a positive mental attitude. Achievers are always motivated to act because they expect their actions to lead to successful, positive results. A research conducted by Napoleon Hill, the best-selling author of Think and Grow Rich, concluded that the most common characteristic of the 500 richest men in America at the time was an attitude of positive expectancy and self-discipline.

The Law of Expectations simply says “Whatever you expect, with confidence, becomes your own self-fulfilling prophecy.” In that regard, you can say that life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you react to it.

My own attitude is that of continuous learning. After writing 22 books in the past decade and speaking to assorted audiences in different continents, my outlook on life is that I can learn from anybody and from every single situation or mistake. In fact, I daresay that I learn much more now as a leader and pastor than I did when I was a student with lecturers and examinations.

    1. Social Networks: These are oftentimes the most underutilized resources for personal and career success. Each of us is sandwiched by potential achievers who in a few years’ time would occupy notable positions in organisations around the world.Time Management: Your respect for time is a prediction of your financial future. It is very rare to find a rich or successful person who does not respect time.

      Every morning, life credits you with 86,400 precious seconds. Every night, it rules off as "lost" whatever you have failed to use toward your God-given purpose. It carries over no balances and allows no overdrafts. You can't hoard it, save it, store it, loan it or invest it. You can only use it. Time is God's gift to you; what you do with it is your gift to God. No matter how poorly you have managed your time in the past, you can start from today and chart a new path to efficiency. In the words of Karen Lamb, "A year from now, you may wish you had started today."

      1. Enthusiasm: It is the energy, passion and zeal you bring to the things you do. It is difficult to excel in anything you do not genuinely feel excited or passionate about. Your enthusiasm about your dream energises you and carries others along with you all the way to the top. I love what I do and would do it for free if I had to.

      Getting paid in a career I am passionate about is a monthly bonus. The passionate person is willing to pay the price to bring about any desired change. If you have remained at the same point in life for a long time and are serious about change, the passion or fire in your bosom must drive you to do what you ordinarily would be lazy about.

      Give up all excuses, put away shyness, stop justifying limitations and just go for your dream. You have all that it takes to make it. In the words of Charles Schwab, “People can succeed at almost anything for which they have enthusiasm”.

      You must be passionate about success and about leaving a mark on your generation. I am passionate about bequeathing a legacy of 100 bestselling books and for them to be read over a century after I have gone.

      The question is how many meaningful relationships have you forged to help you chart your way to the top. Networking is a priceless asset and people by nature love doing business with these they know and trust.

    It is amazing that even with technology providing powerful interventions like Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms, many of us have rather tended to use them for entertainment and light banter and ignored the immense potential they offer for business and career success.

    It is said that you are at every point in time the average of the five closest people in your inner circle. Look around you today and make some changes if you do not like what you see.

    I trust that these five pillars of Deliberateness, Attitude, Time Management, Enthusiasm and Social Networks (D-A-T-E-S) will provide you with a framework to achieve your personal goals and become all that God meant for you to be.

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