Adding A Fun Twist To Your Goal

In Tom Kelley’s Art of Innovation, he discusses on how important it is for companies to go from “zero to sixty” in order to break free from the competition and stay on top. Every year, Silicon Valley venture capitalists put on a race for designing the next best innovation and the proceeds for the cause go to a charity which funds safe rides after a night out with drinking involved. After reading the chapter, my recommendation coincides with his – put a fun twist to your goal.

Quality is everything. As a technical manufacturing supervisor for Medtronic, you cannot skimp out on Quality no matter how dire the situation is with meeting commitments. However, meeting your customer commitments on-time is a requirement that falls just under Quality. As a leader ensuring compliance is met day-in and day out, I’ve learned that you need to be creative to achieve the goal on-time. For example, I’ve challenged the team members to recruit as many people as possible or to maximize the capacity for certain equipment in order to meet a goal by a certain time. This drives them to come up with new ways of letting the product flow through the line without missing a step and impacting Quality. From what I read in Tom Kelley’s book, competition can turn up the speed on some innovative ideas. 

By making something interesting, it can be a driving factor to getting things done. Sometimes you need to change things up in order to be innovative within a given time. Personally, with multiple assignments due for both of my classes on top of work, I have learned to challenge myself and have incentives waiting on the opposite end. If I complete an assignment at least three days in advance, I will be able to spend an extra hour or two doing something where I don’t need to worry about studying such as spending extra time at the gym or tweeting. Try to turn everything you do into a game, without forgetting the goal in mind and the consequences of not achieving certain tasks. It’ll be more fun, drive competition and may be that extra nudge you’ve been needing all along.