For anyone with any experience with either ambition or failure, knowing the difference between perseverance and persistence is the key to achieving success with continued effort in the face of trial after trial while not looking insane to the casual observer.
Perseverance is the continued effort to achieve a goal despite difficulties, delays, or opposition. Persistence is the insanity of doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results.
Practical perseverance is the tool and way because it’s not a matter of language; it’s a matter of behaviour.
The Path to Growth
Executives who fail over and over again and get away with it time and again because of the spin they give it, persist. They are expecting to continue to get away with it, even when those who see through the story for the comprehensive facts are silenced and ignored.
It lasts until it doesn’t, and the company goes bankrupt, the division gets axed, or the executive gets quietly moved to the side. Persistence lasts until it doesn’t.
Those with real ambitions want to know, “Is this the right path?” If it is, it’s easy to concentrate and do your best, trusting that it’s simply a matter of time, and you don’t have to check the map or your compass, you aren’t lost, and even if it’s unfamiliar, you simply have to keep going.
There is no one right path. The point is to pick one and stick to it, because if you keep switching, all progress might be lost in the back-and-forth.
Perhaps lost describes where you are right now. Maybe it’s time to pick yourself up and jump on a path that will share secrets and tools to get you through the tough stuff, and lessons and insights on plotting your own future to make it all worthwhile.
Why I Write
I write to share the secrets and the tools of practical perseverance. I used to teach – executives, engineers, some very smart people.
Trust the process. There is a way, one rooted in engineering, quality, and psychology. A way that is grounded in centuries of pursuing perfection married with brand new science of how the human brain actually functions, and not the calculating, logical thing we like to pretend it is.
Accepting reality and working with facts is the foundation of practical perseverance. I write to share what I’ve learned on this journey. There’s so much more than just grit or determination, and so many different things can masquerade as the truth.
My Experience
As a process engineer, I learned perseverance in learning from when things don’t go right and continuing to try to make them go better more often.
As a certified Six Sigma Black Belt at the forefront of the newest thing in the pursuit of free, immediate perfection, I thought it was what we were all doing.
With my experience, I realize I might have been alone in my understanding.
Free perfection is improving things without spending money. It’s not merely getting a good return on an investment or producing a positive cost/benefit analysis. Immediately means within 4 months. This is so we have something impressive to tell the shareholders the next time we report to them.
It’s looking at how things are done, and doing them differently with the same resources currently available.
With the same resources. Not with more money, or more time, or more people. Yes, it’s not obvious or straightforward. That’s why it’s something you learn and teach, read about and apply, accept and incorporate.
My Journey
As my journey took me from manufacturing to service, I had no idea that my world was about to implode.
In manufacturing, everything is tangible, repeatable, and permanent. We can measure, and the data decides who is right. In manufacturing, I had a voice because I understood data. As a consultant, I found those who were not heard and gave them a voice. Progress was a matter of fact.
In service, none of that is true. In service, the data didn’t win. The winner was the highest-ranking voice, the most powerful, the most experienced, the best-dressed…the list was long, but it was never about the data. It was also never progress, but a tug-of-war and spin-the-story contest.
When it wasn’t about the data, the old ways persisted until they no longer worked, until the person blamed was fired, until the company folded or went bankrupt.
My Goal
Understanding and following the data seems straightforward, but the human brain is not designed for a straightforward journey. It is designed, however, to recognize that and make adequate plans and protections to fare better. To create systems.
My goal is to share a process of perseverance that blends engineering with psychology. I aim to explain how to go forward on facts, plans, and solid data, and to learn to predict and prevent where human nature will have you distracted and heading into the ditch.
For the good of all. You, me, our relationships, workplaces, finances and world.
The process of perseverance works when you have a goal that you want to achieve strongly enough to be able to be done with doing the same old things that aren’t working.
Let go of what doesn’t work and replace it with what does.