Always Improve

1. Be a gentleman and a professional at all times.
2. Be the person who deserves the things you want.
3. Never complain or explain.
4. Take credit and responsibility.
5. Everyone is special.
6. Always improve.

Okay--last one in this series, and perhaps the most difficult, because it involves motivations as much as actions.

I can remember when I was younger and played on the Hendersonville High School football team the coach hung big posterboards in the weight room that had bar charts at each weight station showing who had "maxed out" at what weight.  It was a huge motivation for me--I wanted to be the best, lift the most, be the strongest. The coach made a big deal when someone improved their max, getting a red marker and drawing a rectangle on the end of the black bar that marked our original max.  The improvement was in red--very visible.  As I worked out, I had dreams of growing my red bars, but also of playing college and professional football, of being wealthy, of retiring in my thirties.

Just writing that is difficult now, because it involves such a different worldview.  I saw my value through other people's eyes, through fame, through wealth.  The coach put up a chart saying what he valued, and the rest of the team adopted that value--strength.  We grunted and sweated and pushed and pulled, and when we weren't in the weight room, we talked about it.  It became our value system, which is embarrassing now because it is sooooooo shallow.

(For those of you who don't know me well, I am much more interested now in how I can contribute than in what I can get out of it; in the reality rather than other peoples' perceptions, and I rely on God for my sustenance, rather than having a goal of accumulating wealth.  I can't imagine going back to the insecurities of my younger, less mature value system.)

When I put these guidelines together, I thought about many ways to write this one--"lifelong learning," "keep growing," and even including specific goals such as love, wealth, security, intelligence.  In the end, I chose something that would endure many seasons of life.  What I valued as a high school football player is not what I value now.  What I value now is not what I will value when my kids leave the house, when I retire, when I'm on my fifth company, rather than my second.  However, wherever I am, whatever values are current in my life, there will always be opportunity for improvement, and thus the simple phrase, "Always improve."

Dreamweaver International

I have now started my second company.  Dreamweaver International will use nanofibers to improve energy storage in rechargeable batteries--think cell phones, laptops and electric and hybrid vehicles. 

In running Dreamweaver, I want to improve on what we did at Innegrity.  Some improvements are simple, such as choosing a technology without large capital requirements, choosing an industry with direct access to customers, choosing an industry with faster growth dynamics and a higher innovation rate, choosing to minimize overhead by leveraging external resources, choosing an industry with early exit opportunities.  These are structural, are a direct result of learnings from running Innegrity and can be built directly into the business plan.  As I think back, I find it amazing that Innegrity ran for so long and accomplished so much even in adverse conditions and with structural flaws in the business plan.  It can only be attributed to the people on the team and their energy, their drive, and frankly their ability to believe that we could do it despite all the headwinds we faced.

That leads us to the people, and a few mistakes that turned out to be absolutely critical.  Most of the people in the company were good employees--very talented, reasonably hard working, and motivated by both personal gain as well as being a part of something that was going to do good in the world.  The material, after all, was going to stop bullets, and it's difficult not to think through the ramifications--lives saved, families kept unified--especially when it was front-and-center with the whole team, every day.  They made sacrifices every day for the greater good.  For this and their dedication, I was and will remain very, very grateful.

Along the way, however, we accumulated a few employees who never let go of that high school worldview, and it brings us to the question of personal motivations and how important they can be.

A Difficult Decision

Recently, I was faced with a difficult hiring decision.  One candidate, "Terri," was terrific.  She had graduated cum laude from USC, had a great personality, and...well...we connected.  I asked her what her passion was, and she said, "helping people, and being a positive influence in their lives."  I asked for her to describe a time in her life when she had faced adversity, and how she dealt with it.  She said, "I was a black female baptist in Utah," and described how she had kept a positive attitude and kept doing the things that she needed to despite all the attitudes and preconceptions she faced.  I don't cry much, but as we talked through all of this I had tears wetting the corners of my eyes.

All of her examples, though, were around her real passion in life, which is to act.  How she got a part in her third grade play.  How she wanted to use her acting to be a positive influence, and how she chose parts that allowed her to do this.  How acting had helped her stay centered in difficult racial and religious environments.

I ended up with another candidate I really liked, and so a difficult decision.  I talked to people I trust--the recruiter, my management team, and my wife.  They unanimously chose the other candidate, who had started two companies of her own and had a much broader and more relevant skill set--accounting, advertising, marketing, customer service--rather than basic office skills.

The advice was right, but I still nearly cut across the grain and hired "Terri," even acknowledging that the other candidate would get started faster.  In the end, it came down to doing what was best for them.  The candidate we hired is an entrepreneur--she and her husband started a company he is still running which is their main source of income; she has started another company but needs to refine the product and business plan before it will be successful--and she is more creative and will start other companies in the future, hopefully selling them and being very successful.  Working at Dreamweaver will be front and center for her, and the skills she learns will be applied immediately and directly to her passion in life, which is to start and build companies.

For "Terri," her passion would always be elsewhere, and work would be work.  She has the heart and charisma and talent to do the job, but, after praying about it, I knew that God has greater things in store for her, that Dreamweaver would be a distraction, a resting place while she waited for her dreams to come true elsewhere.

And so, while I didn't choose the name "Dreamweaver," weaving dreams is perhaps the most difficult, seductively subtle task we will do--bringing together people who have different goals, different aspirations, different dreams, and weaving them together into one company where we all cherish our position in the greater whole and are grateful for the rest of the "fabric," for the others around us.

A company can perish for a lot of reasons, one of which is failing at this: because individual threads can tug in different directions, and pursuing their different goals, aspirations and dreams can destroy the fabric, eventually destroying the company.

Always Improve

"Improvements" can take many forms--some are spiritual, some are structural, and some are personal.  But for this guideline, the direction is clear--always improve, whether through good times or bad.  Every success is an opportunity to improve, as is every failure.  (Honestly, the failures may be easier.)