The Higher You Go
The higher you go
“The higher you go, the cooler it becomes.” Really? Let us start from the fundamentals. It is a maxim we learnt form geography in school about the weather.
Having come a long way in our professions and our careers, can we safely say it has been cooler over the years, as we ascended the corporate ladder? Even at that, how can we simply apply the higher you go belief in the way we work and live?
Has it certainly been cooler for you over the years as you climbed higher? Certainly not, you answer. The higher you go; the cooler, may work in geography or atmospheric conditions, certainly not in the workplace, vocations, professions, family and relationships.
What with mounting responsibilities, challenges, economic and social problems. It has certainly not been cooler for me. If it has been so for you, then you must be a superstar. Even superstars feel the pinch too as they rise in stardom. While there may be some consistency in geographical conditions, it is not necessarily so in economic and social conditions.
In geography, it may just be true that the higher you go the cooler. In professional practice and business, you may be up today, and down tomorrow. Either way, it gets hotter. This is the real story.
So to remain cool, should you stagnate? No! You have to be upwardly mobile to improve your fortunes and quality of life for you and your family. But you need to consistently do a number of things to make it cooler as you go higher. You need to do so because the challenges of leadership and the hassles of remaining competitive in the marketplace are becoming overwhelming globally.
Everything has an atmosphere. For your person it is called aura, and by extension charisma. This personal atmosphere can pull or repel with interplay of forces with other persons or objects. Metallic objects that do so are called magnets. The higher you go.
As you have atmospheric conditions; hot, cold, harsh winter or summer, so they are for you as a person.
Growing up and progressing in life, business, your workplace and profession have atmospheres. And so the challenge for you is to emulate nature and make sure your atmosphere becomes cooler as you go higher in life and your profession.
You need to chill your atmosphere of going higher so that you can live long, be more productive and tell a good story about your life and work. For professional businessmen and women, the world over, life and work is certainly getting hotter. And some are dying in their 30s and 40s largely as a result of high blood pressure, stroke, diabetes, kidney failure and accidents.
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Check out the obituary pages of many newspapers, you will see a familiar caption as is done in Nigeria: Gone too soon; then a tribute, followed by names of the Committee of Friends. And the pay off…burial arrangements as announced by the family. The higher you go.
If you don’t want to be a victim, then chill your atmosphere. The critical question now is: How cool or hot is your state of life and business now? Cool! Congratulations, please keep it up so that you may live long and it shall be well with you. May be it is hot. Then you must act fast and begin to chill your atmosphere as nature does in our study of geography. So how do you chill your condition? Adapt what I call the compressor strategy. If possible, be a compressor. Doing so enables you to use less space, time and energy, achieve more and tell the good story of success.
To understand this better, take a look at all the electrical gadgets in your home that chill; refrigerators, air conditioners and others. They all have something in common- a component called the compressor. What does it do? Powered by electricity, this component compresses a special gas causing condensation that transforms air to liquid droplets. When this happens, the temperature of the fridge drops and the atmosphere in it becomes a lot cooler. That is essentially what an air conditioner does. Read the concluding of this story in Part 2, in the next edition of Great Storytelling network.
So why don’t you begin to compress your thoughts, actions, ways and methods. The way you work and live; why don’t you compress and simplify them, chill your atmosphere and make life and work easier for you.
See how technology works. Any improvement in that field shortens time, space and volume; improves speed and efficiency, and increases productivity. The coming of the computer has achieved this. Tons of dates bases that were once stored in huge volumes of files, shelves and cabinet are now conveniently stored in flash drives and CD ROMs. What started as mainframe computer has been reduced to laptops. This is compression and simplicity.
So how simple is your lifestyle, your work and the way you live. How simple are your products and services for consumers to use, and your work processes, even production lines? Are they cumbersome or has everything been compressed, reduced in time and length and simplified.
How simple are your brands for your consumers to understand and use? What is your brand story? Do your brands tell their story to make your customers understand your products and services? Can brand tell stories? Yes they can. If you don’t know how to do it, then employ the services of professional storytellers. A subset of this group is known as brand storytellers.
What about the communication lines and chains of command and authority in your organisation, are they compressed, flat or circuitous, of many layers?
If you are a CEO, General Manager or Senior Manager, have you compressed your work processes and communication flow with subordinate staff? Do you tell corporate stories to communicate well? Or are you one of those bosses that believe so much in line management: “You must relate to me through your boss.” That is your story.
Every Monday morning, you hold endless management meetings to stem the dwindling fortunes of your organisation in the marketplace. The business temperature is rising, heating up the business atmosphere for you and your company.
The higher you go, the cooler it becomes. That is if you are a leader and not a boss. There is a difference. Leaders command respect and have disciples whom they groom, care for, and secure a future. When they do so, the corporate atmosphere is cool. Not so for bosses. They heat up the system with their rigidity. They forcefully demand loyalty and are grudgingly followed by unrepentant and complaining workers.
Nothing heats up a system like complaining followers. They poison the atmosphere. Even Almighty God does not tolerate complaining followers. That is why He chose Moses in the book of Genesis, a man with a large heart to lead the children of Israel through the desert to their promised land.
So dear professional, how large is your heart? What are the stories in your heart? Do you tell them to lead? How humble are you? Do you serve to lead (servant leader) or do you drive to lead (slave driver). The higher you go.
As a professional, leader, mentor, CEO, manager, supervisor, please do not heat up the system. You have a responsibility to make it cooler, not just for you, but for others following you. Be a compressor, humble yourself, develop a large heart, serve, tell motivating stories, and simplify the work process.
Do these and more, and you will harmonise your ways with geography which teaches that, the higher you, the cooler it becomes. Goodluck.
Eric Okeke received MBA (Marketing) from ESUT Business School, Enugu, Nigeria. He is an editor, storyteller and media consultant.
He started journalism at The Guardian, Lagos, Nigeria. He is author of “I Want A Husband”, a self-help book for single women searching for Mr. Right. Email him at, ericosamba@yahoo.com
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