Success that lasts

1
Success that lasts

• Based on the article
• By Laura Nash and Howard Stevenson,
• Harvard Business Review, February 2004,

2
The four building blocks

• There are four building blocks of enduring
  success
• Happiness - feelings of pleasure or contentment
  about life
• Achievement - accomplishments that compare
  favourably against similar goals others have
  strived for
• Significance- the sense of making a positive
  impact on people we care about
• Legacy - a way to establish our values or
  accomplishments so as to help others find future
  success.

3
All components must be there

• If we take away any one component, it no longer
  feels like "real" success.
• If we become rich because of career success but
  cannot get the time to enjoy, would we consider
  ourselves successful?
• If building our power base prevented us from
  caring for others, would our success feel morally
  right?
• If we left our career to be a full time parent,
  would we have enough of an outlet for our
  talents?

4
We must succeed on all four fronts

• The four components of success cannot be
  satisfied by the presence of a single flavor in
  each category.
• We cannot neatly categorize the realms of our
  life,
• assigning happiness to self,
• achievement to work,
• significance to family,
• legacy to community.
• Unless we succeed on all four fronts, we will not
  be satisified.

5
Excessive focus on one dimension does not pay

• Excessive focus on one of the four dimensions,
  leads to a sense of emptiness.
• We know we are doing what is right, but it still
  feels like a loss.
• We are preoccupied with thoughts of the other
  things we could be doing or getting.
• Our achievements and pleasures fade almost as
  soon as they occur.
• By contrast, success that encompasses all four
  kinds of accomplishment is enriching it endures.

6
Each factor is different

• Each factor has a different set of
  characteristics.
• Satisfying different needs, they draw on
  distinctive emotional drives and prioritize self
  and others in different ways.
• That's why happiness, achievement, and
  significance will not come automatically if we
  simply become work focused.
• Regardless of how much we care about our job, we
  will still feel conflicting desires--between work
  and home, between working forever on a problem
  and taking a break from it, between increasing
  market share today and investing in the company's
  needs for tomorrow.

7

• The skills we use to compete are totally
  different from those we employ in moments of
  enjoyment.
• We can be there for a friend, and we can care
  about a customer, but these acts (in the
  significance category) can't be substituted for
  the kind of thinking and prioritization that is
  necessary to score big wins for our own firm (in
  the achievement category).
• Understanding the distinctive features of the
  four areas of success can help us get more out of
  life.

8
Switching between multiple goals

• The high achievers recognize they have multiple
  goals that are critical to their idea of real
  success.
• They remain fully committed to whatever activity
  they are engaged in.
• They limit their attention to one task, and when
  other needs crop up, they are able to change
  quickly their focus and emotional energy.
• Instead of feeling cheated because they couldn't
  get it all, they are renewed by following the
  cycle of attention to each category.

9

• People who experience real satisfaction achieve
  it through the deliberate imposition of limits.
• They all share a versatile talent called
  "switching and linking.
• They are able to focus intensely on one task
  until it gives them a particular sense of
  satisfaction, then put it down and jump to the
  next category with a feeling of accomplishment
  and renewed energy.
• This versatile refocusing could occur within the
  same activity (say, from maximising profits to
  building relationships with customers, from
  driving people hard to mentoring), or it can
  involve switching attention between two realms
  (taking a break from work to taking part in a
  community activity).

10
A broad and dynamic experience

• The successful people view success as a broad and
  dynamic experience of accomplishment, one that
  factors in all four categories.
• They don't attribute their success to one single
  event or one single realm of life.
• They don't set maximum goals for themselves in
  each category rather, they set some at a small
  scale and some at a scale that demand sustained
  effort.
• These individuals are less concerned with the
  amount of activity or number of rewards in any
  one category, and more with ensuring a
  proportionate mix of all four.

11
Conclusion

• People who achieve enduring success strive for
  balance.
• Feeling deep satisfaction in each category
  strengthens their ability to turn away from one
  category when another needs attention.
• It allows them to say, "I don't need to work away
  at this particular thing until I'm satiated and
  hate the very sight of it. This is just enough."
• They recognize the importance of setting their
  own standards for "enough" and not falling prey
  to the lure of the infinite "more."