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It's Only Common Sense: Be Unreasonable

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To be great you must to be unreasonable. You must be the one to expect more from yourself and those around you than most are comfortable giving. You must get off your butt, get out of your comfort zone, and make things happen that no one thought possible.

Look, reasonable people are nice, and they are easy to do business with; they are comfortable to be with, but they will never ever get out of that warm and cozy comfort zone enough to push the envelope.

Reasonable people don’t break records. Reasonable people don’t drive change, and reasonable people don’t demand their people ever go where no one has ever gone before. They just get along to go along and keep to the status quo.

Just think what would have happened (or not happened) if Galileo had been a reasonable guy? Or Columbus? Or Jobs? Or Gates? Or any other person driven throughout his life to make that proverbial “dent in the universe”? Where would we be?

Where would we be if Kennedy had been reasonable about putting a man on the Moon or Reagan about tearing down the Berlin Wall? Nowhere. A more reasonable man would asked us to put a man on the Moon in due time or would have asked Gorbachev if he felt the time was right for the wall to come down.

In the end, greatness is all about being unreasonable. This particularly applies to those of us in the PCB industry. Here are a few unreasonabe items, but they must be done anyway:

It’s unreasonable to expect to be on time, every time, but that’s what the customer wants. Just think how gamechanging it would be if you were the one shop in the world that never missed a date?

It’s unreasonable to have a 100% quality. You will never be perfect if you convince yourself perfection is unreasonable. Go for it! Be unreasonable until you're perfect.

It’s unreasonable to go up against foreign competition. Who said we had to kowtow to the competition? There are plenty of things we can improve upon if we're unreasonably focused on being the best in the world.

It’s unreasonable to keep up with technology. Frankly, I don’t even think this one is that unreasonable. We are in a technology business and our customers are technology companies. There's just no excuse for not being at the top of our game when it comes to technology.

It’s unreasonable to wildly exceed customers' demands. Companies with unreasonable leaders--like Apple under Steve Jobs, for example--are always coming up with products that not only exceede customers’ expectations, but are so far ahead of expectations customers did not even realize they needed such a product until they had them in their hands.

It’s unreasonable to buy the best equipment possible. Once again, this one is a pretty big DUH. To be the best you must use the best equipment on the market today. End of story.

It’s unreasonable to have the best business in the industry. You will never have the best business in the industry if you don’t set goals albeit unreasonable goals to be the very best. Dream it and then do it.

It’s unreasonable to expect to make a lot of money. There's nothing wrong with making money. This is why we're in business and money is the fuel of a business. Be unreasonable about the amount of money you want to make.

It’s unreasonable to have a professional sales force. You get what you accept. If you accept mediocrity that is what you can expect to get. If you expect greatness (and work at it) you will get greatness. Be very unreasonable about expecting the very best from your salespeople.

It’s unreasonable to expect everyone to be on the same page when it comes to passion. Whatever it takes, make sure everyone is on the same page; make sure everyone is excited about the company’s goals; and make sure associates are unreasonably passionate about the company.

It’s unreasonable to be your customers’ go-to vendor. Insist that you be the very best vendor your customers deal with. Live and walk and talk and eat and breathe being the best. Be super unreasonable about it and you will be the best.

Is to expect all of these things unreasonable? You bet it is. In fact, it’s unreasonable as hell. But if you want to be great at what you’re doing you must be--say it with me--unreasonable. It’s only common sense.