The ongoing series of blogs excerpting my recently published book, Building a Brilliant Tomorrow, continues with the conclusion of the discussion of the third of Inovateus’ five PEACE core values: ambition. I see myself as a big-picture person, with some ambitious visions of where Inovateus can go in the future. Admittedly, I’m not the most detail-oriented guy and need my team to help fill out the plan for how to accomplish our goals. Ambition exposes both strengths and weaknesses, and I believe that the weaknesses must be embraced if the challenges are to be overcome.
***
In leading this company, I see my main role as being the visionary. I’m a big-picture person. I can see the future. I can touch it, taste it, see it, feel it in my mind. I can paint the picture in my head. I can even paint it for others. My visions are very ambitious, so ambitious that, sometimes, when I share the vision of where Inovateus Solar can go in the future, people give me a puzzled look. They don’t quite understand how we will get there. But I’ve been blessed with having a very skilled team to help fill in the pieces of the foundation to get where we want to go. I’m only an effective visionary if I have the necessary supporting cast to accomplish what I believe we can accomplish.
For instance, our chief operating officer John Jackson is an implementer, a detail person. Often, when I share a vision with him, he sends me a chart the next day that shows the vision on paper. Then there’s Lindsey Foley, our chief financial officer, who puts together the budget, manages the cash flow, and builds an administration team that helps us do what we do day in and day out. We’ve also built a team of industry leaders in solar-energy engineering and design. We’ve aligned ourselves with the best manufacturers in the industry. And our team is constantly doing research and development to find the best products we need.
When we hire new members for the team, we look for people with a variety of backgrounds. But we also look for people who have ambition and aren’t afraid to be trailblazers because, as I’ve said, a lot of what we do nobody has done before. We need people who genuinely want to do big things. When we interview, I believe we rank ambition higher than experience.
So as an ambitious leader, I have to take care to ensure that the vision for Inovateus Solar is clearly communicated. I must also ensure that I continue to have a team that can articulate that vision because it can get a little confusing with all the emerging technologies and information. To do that, I must continually understand my strengths and weaknesses, which means I must spend almost as much time focused on my weaknesses as my strengths.
My weakness lies in planning details. Visionaries are not usually very analytical or detail-minded people. That definitely holds true for me. I’m not good with the minutiae. For example, even though I wrote the original business plan in 2008, we must constantly update the plan, and it takes a whole team to vet all of the details. I can understand where we’re going and how we’re going to get there, but I’ve found that I need a very strong team to help lay the foundation.
Being ambitious is a great thing, but it’s also important to be conscious of the challenges that strong ambitions can bring about. Ambition will expose both strengths and weaknesses, and I’ve found that the weaknesses must be embraced if the challenges are to be overcome.
In the next blog excerpt from Building a Brilliant Tomorrow, I will talk about the fourth of Inovateus’ PEACE core values: creativity.
By TJ Kanczuzewski, president/CEO, Inovateus Solar
