The Secret To Success

Let's get something real clear: success doesn't come from getting organized--it comes from following your heart. Or the seat of your pants. Or your gut. (Pick the words you like, that you're not allergic to.)

Getting organized (a la David Allen) won't in itself solve the bigger issues and creative challenges that we all face from time to time. What it will do is help clear the decks internally, and create a more open space within which to do the real knowledge work--making the decisions about allocation of resources to make things happen that won't happen by themselves. It also gives the skills and tools to ensure that things actually happen once we've decided to do them.

I was reminded of all this as I finished working with a client--a CEO with lots of responsibility to a company board, a deep desire to maintain high standards, and quite a moving target for a market and product line definition. His pain was his perception of "stuck-ness" in some of the bigger projects that he thought he should be clarifying and moving on. He was laboring under the self-judgment that he should be doing more than he was doing. In truth, he was doing exactly what he should be doing--rehearsing various scenarios and exploring all the ins and outs of each one, generating internal information and perspectives until critical mass is reached and the hunch factor will take over.

Many projects are waiting on more data to make the next level of decision, or waiting on others to deliver their delegated pieces. As long as the action steps about getting that data and the "waiting fors" are clarified, recorded, and tracked, the executive work is (and rightly so) the inner conversation.

Clearing up the static is an important and often necessary factor. But tuning the station and listening are the critical elements to success.

"...the salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart, in the human power to reflect, in human meekness and in human responsibility. -- Vaclav Havel

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You can find out more about David Allen and GTD at www.DavidCo.com.

The David Allen Company is a professional training, coaching, and management consulting organization, based in Ojai, California. Its purpose is to enhance performance and improve the quality of life by providing the world's best information, education, and products in the fields of personal productivity and work/life balance.

Comments

[gr8abz]

Fine, follow your heart. But if your heart is into poetry, acting, painting or dance. Get ready for a ruff ruff ride. There are no guarentees that heart felt tenacity will ever yield the dream. Fact of life. Some professions are a crap shoot or like playing the lottery. A minute percentage will ever pull the winning number the cast majority will end up struggling to survive --regardless of talent levels. Follow your heart yes but be realistic and know when it is time to switch careers before you are to old and too broke. You might actually have better luck doing something else. Life ain't easy. Sincere wishes and good luck to all you artists and heart followers.

[lorita]

consultants are to ceos, as astrologists are to presidents.

[FalconerHK]

Amen to that. And thank you mother nature for my OCD or I'd have to hire a "consultant" to get me "organized" so I can be "successful".

So, what IS the key to success? Follow my heart? Seriously?

But what if my heart tells me to lay on the couch, eat junk food and watch endless reruns of Dirty Jobs. What then?

Oh, right. Hire a consultant.

[zaka1]

Dear Mr. Allen,

No, insult to you, but this is doesn't work unless your part of the elite who will help move you up through the ranks. The elite want to keep us down, they want us to believe in upward mobility, it is all a lie. Sorry, but tell this to all the college educated kids working in a coffee shop making your mocha's.

[dadw5boys]

Another cheer leader has he met G.W.?????