Constant vigilance

For a company where decisions spell out its ultimate fate, vigilance is a core attribute. Practicing vigilance on internal systems, external factors, income and expenditure will bring peace of mind to the owners. 

Simple as it may sound, when it comes to implementing your confidence, there’s so much inner conflict to deal with. Are you doing the right thing? What if this fails? Then there is the emotion factor: fear, anger, insecurity, sexism, retribution, jealousy. Vigilance is a mantra that should guide you from all these inner voices towards building your company stronger bigger and better. 

Every year, hundreds of books are published on how to think positive, the secrets behind success, the powers of subconscious minds, how the Toms, Dicks and Harrys’ got things right. If all the readers actually practiced what they read, the world should technically not be suffering from cheaters, poverty, debt or deficits. 

But sometimes what is more important is vigilance on one’s own zone of comfort. Like any other soft skill, vigilance too can be inbuilt or learnt through experience by being attentive to irregularities on how things are now from what they were used to be. The few simple thoughts listed below are a few observations: 

Vigilance over ego: your customer or a staff member may know something you don’t. Effective communication will solve many problems and provide many solutions. 

Vigilance over rashness: Unless you are a mother in law who makes absolutely no flaws in life, we all are guilty as charged of being pugnacious in our communications and rash in our decisions at some point or place. Life is constantly evolving. Find a better way to handle it the next time. No one will remember nor care what it was all about later on.

Vigilance on your comfort zone: Some fine day, you will have to get over there and do the dirty work. Your secretary cannot study and pass the exam for you!

Vigilance over distraction: Known as the masters of deception, the Australian cricket team barely looses a game! Distraction is a powerful art of war and can hit you with anything starting from bad news to a skirt. Distraction creates injury. But injury creates experience.

Vigilance over internal noise: Close the doors on all internal voices resonating fear, negativity, suspicion and stigmas. Focus on the goal. Priorities need to be re-arranged. 

Vigilance over cost: Keep your costs in your prayers. Be vigilant over recruiting, utilities, toners and toilet paper! Worst of all, the worst possible cost accumulator - unprofitable man hours - wasted in relentless unproductive gossiping and pecking on smart phones.

Vigilance over greed: It is a well-known fact that most workers who are paid on per piece or per hour basis are cheated by the employers. The usual sources being cutting overtime and deductions. Just because a policy allows a certain deductions from salary, some employers ‘create’ funds and charities etc to accumulate wealth for themselves. Some employers go to the extent of forcing staff to various contributions. If it is difficult to let go beautiful money that you own, especially when you own the company, then be warned, karma has a way of coming back to claim the price of greed and cheating. 

Growing up independent from a young age, without adults having to breathe down your neck is one main source of building vigilance. You are misjudged, cheated and exploited. This results in being able to pay attention and get out of sticky situations at the right time. Vigilance is not about saving the world but about saving yourself or what matters to you: reputation/ cash flow/ privacy etc. A decision based on vigilance hardly gives scope to be judged upon. 

Examples of where vigilance could have changed history

Have a look at how a few long standing companies have lost the race of keeping up and how some existing strong companies were challenged:

Borders (today known as Barnes & Noble who acquired it): Known to be the biggest bookseller in US in the 1970s’, failed to keep in touch with evolving technology such as eBooks, Amazon and everything digital, and declared bankruptcy. 

Kodak: No stranger to the world of photography, gone bankrupt due to failure or unwillingness to evolve to digital. Although it is still holding on to a small market share of professional film based photographers.

Nokia, Motorola and Siemens: The giants have contributed immensely to the GSM and hand held devices technologies in the late 1990s, achieved the unfortunate fate of not being able to keep up with competition and adapt to the technological improvements the world was headed to. Although Nokia eventually gobbled up Motorola and Siemens through few smart product improvements, it failed to keep up its entre with Apple and Samsung.

Vigilance alerts!

Globally, the rent a car industry is being revolutionised by the tech savvy Uber concept. Customers need not dial a number and talk to a rep to order a cab.

Airbnb is disrupting the traditional hotel booking and renting system posing equal opportunities to home stays as well as luxury hotels on the same platform.

Intel – today is challenged by rising Artificial intelligence, Cloud computing, and GPU (Graphic Processing Units) processors with speeds that are nearly 2000 times faster.  

Volkswagen partnership with TATA for technology and manufacturing. With this partnership, VW’s Skoda will be positioned to the masses, impacting automobile markets targeting the masses in the region. TATA also owns UK luxury brands Jaguar and Land Rover.  

3D printed jewelry may be the next bling. Sellers can design and print the jewelry to the customer’s tastes within a few hours. Eliminates labor costs, increases profits, the customer or designer can see exactly what they will get eliminating waste.   

The simplest way to practice vigilance is to constant evaluation. To quote Lord Buddha, ‘Do not overlook negative actions merely because they are small. However small a spark can be it can burn down a haystack as big as a mountain.’

(The writer is a Director at Forte Corporate Solutions Ltd., and holds a 1st Class degree in Business Management and MCIM/Chartered Marketer of CIM-UK. She can be contacted on [email protected]. Forte Corporate Solutions Ltd. provides BPO and PR solutions.)