Faster Alone, Further Together
Mark Zuckerberg once said, “Move fast and break things.” For a while this was a motto that you could find on my lips daily. While I do believe that there is still a lot of value in breaking things, I am rethinking some of my thoughts on speed.
This does not mean that delivery to clients on time is not valuable or that some things need a hyperfast turnaround to be effective. Rather, I’m rethinking what it means to be successful in the long run.
An African proverb reads, “If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” At the beginning of our business, I was alone and lots of things happened quickly. But even with my propensity to work hard for a long period of time, there is only so hard I can work and only for so long. There is a point of diminishing returns.
Additionally, while I am good at many things, I am great at very few. When breaking into a new service field with lower rates than others, there is room for services of varying quality. To improve the quality of our service and the quality of our products, other people who can SPECIALIZE and FOCUS on things more than I can are essential.
“Specializing” and “focusing” are two themes that have become increasingly apparent to me over the course of 2020 and 2021. The theme for 2022 reflects this: Faster Alone, Further Together.
For Adelsberger Marketing to become both The Best Place to Work in West Tennessee and the Premier Creative Agency in West Tennessee, I have to embrace this thought that we can go further together. The sprint of starting a business leads to the emphasis on speed, the building of a company and leaving a legacy, requires a team working together over a marathon.
Points of emphasis on our theme in 2022:
Additional training and delegation to the team.
Making intentional choices to bring team members on things that would normally be a solo activity.
More transparency and inclusion in leadership and business development decisions.
New Avenues may be started alone, but will be planned to expand to the team as part of the planning process.
Are you still trying to go faster alone or have you transitioned to further together?
