The Difference Between Eureka! and Utopia!
- Post By: Greg Crumpton
- Date:
- Category: Blog
Recently I was reviewing my personal notes from the first quarter of this year. Working through them seems to help me, and AirTight at-large, stay on target and keep our focus.
Understanding ourselves goes a long way in being able to serve our customers at a very high level. Digging through some of the information in my version of the “Electronic Junk Drawer”, I found a note from July of 2012.
What was I doing on July 17, 2012? Well, as it turns out. Like many professionals say, vacation is a great stimuli for thinking. That was the last day of a quickie trip that Connie (my bride of 28 years) and I had taken to New York. I guess the professionals do know what they are talking about.
Here are the top things I recorded that day:
• Authenticity is differentiation defined
• Embrace the uniqueness of others and situations
• Being different does matter
• Excellence can be, and really should be, a deviation from the norm
• Different is: doing activities others don’t
• Doing the same activities as others, but doing them differently
• Focus on what works and has worked in the past
• Strategy AND design both, not one or the other
Over my 49 plus years, I have become an avid reader, so I can’t claim authorship of all of these thoughts and combinations of words. I have merely developed them into bullet points that drive our company, and me specifically. That is my disclaimer.
Fast forward to this week and next, I will be lucky enough to be a participant in the performance evaluations for our technical and our production teams. Many people I know consider these to be a box checking exercise or a bother… usually both. The fact is that I enjoy the two to three week commitment to doing these, as it is some of the best time we get to spend together.
You may be wondering what this has to do with the notes from my vacation. Everything! The words on my vacation journal pages are usually spoken during my time with the technically savvy folks and our production team, it’s just that they say them, not me. We are actually embracing, as a company, the same thoughts, desires and out-reach-type of mentality that I personally carry. It’s a Eureka kind of moment.
On the other hand, we do not live in Utopia, and we understand the difference between Eureka! and Utopia! As a company, we often talk about and discuss “Intent and Intentions”. We are humans, we screw up. What we also do is fix it. Promptly, timely and professionally. Our Intent is to be world-class. We as a group are a work in progress, but if we work, learn, study and develop with the intentions of becoming thorough, being authentic, understanding individualities, and doing what others can’t, or won’t do, we will always serve at a level that others are simply un-willing to get to.
