Achieve Excellence by jumping from your Hamster Wheel

I was discussing with one of my friend in sales function and he was explaining me his secret sauce of his success in winning a deal. Since he was a close friend of mine, we were discussing various aspects and during discussions he mentioned that offlate, when he was trying for little bigger deals for improving his play and he was not able to win the deals using the same formula; he did everything that needs to be done which used to win him deals but he was not getting results, he was working like crazy but results were alluding him.

Many a time we also get in to such situation, where in we plan to do big things, make significant efforts in the manner we know and still do not achieve results. We came across same types of hurdles, we came across similar types of team members whom we need to teach the process from scratch and get them to speed, we get similar types of disagreements within the team, we get in to same type of last minute frenzy at every toll gate and many a times result does not show any co-relation with the efforts that we put in or the team size that we employ.

I have seen many people who move from one organization to another and miraculously they face same type of people everywhere and same type of interactions (+ve as well as –ve) and same types of reasons to make a decision to find another job. This cycle goes on, they really do not move upwards in the career through the jobs they undertake one after other.

All these people are on HAMSTER WHEEL of their own creation. The Secret Sauce for selling deals for my friend in sales function was his hamster wheel. It will allow him to win the deals only in that segment and whatever efforts he puts using the same sauce, they remain only as efforts and quantum of efforts does not have any relation with the results so even if he runs fast or for long duration, he remains at the same place. Same is the case with the project manager who gets in to same types of troubles in every project; the “Project Management Method” ingrained in to his mind is his hamster wheel and he is running on the same to get a predictable result with no improvements.

So if we are on our hamster wheel, we behave in the same manner every time; we do the things in exactly the same way again and again; and we typically get the same kind of results. We do not improve ourselves nor we deteriorate. We remain stationary. It does not allow us to improve our excellence levels. It actually deteriorates over a period of time and we realize it when the deterioration is significant. Result is we change job and try our luck at next. We really do not pay attention to our Hamster wheel; we actually are oblivious of the same so the cycle repeats.

So how do we check if we are on any sort of hamster wheel?

We can start asking some questions to oneself like Am I connecting with customer in the same manner as I used to connect a few years ago? Am I planning my projects in the same manner for a while? Do I conceptualize & build the presentations to customers or management in the same manner for some time? Do I delegate work to my team in the same manner for all my life? Do I review work of my subordinates in the same manner as I used to do two years ago? If the answer is yes, then you are on your hamster wheel and will need to dig deeper in to things like, have you been getting similar results or have you been observing a cyclical pattern in any of the areas to get a better clarity on your hamster wheel. Another easy way to put it across is IF YOU ARE COMFORTABLE IN YOUR JOB, YOU ARE ON YOUR HAMSTER WHEEL. Your comfort levels will not allow you to change or do things differently, thus you do not improve.

Once we get an understanding about our hamster wheel, the things become easier for us. We just need to jump from the hamster wheel, get in to doing things differently, experimenting with new things, take up new challenges beyond your comfort zone, learn new things and deploy the learning in to your work even though it might contradict your earlier beliefs. There are several ways to improve your excellence levels as explained in my earlier blogs on “Simplify for Excellence”, “Just Do it for Excellence”, “Questioning”, “Excellence through Say-Do ratio”. First step out from hamster wheel is the most difficult and most important step; once you take it, rest is simple.