Insurmountable Opportunity

It’s amazing to have a great idea and to see a demonstrable market need for it. It’s even more amazing when you see that your idea is unique and well-timed.

Even if you are fearless, inspired and energetic in pursuing your brilliant idea, you will soon know all too well what ‘insurmountable opportunity’ means. Will you ever feel like you have the team, support, infrastructure and funding that you really need? Probably not. Welcome to the unique suffering of the innovator!

Your idea demands a lot of you. You need WAY more support than you’re used to. You have to become a surgical prioritizer. You must reinvent yourself as a great evangelist – not just for publicity, but to enlist a team, get the right funding, find the allies and partners, win customers, open new markets. Sometimes it feels like your vision is eating your life – you have to show up in so many different ways at once. Most of all – you want to do justice to your great idea, to not let your human limits keep your idea from reaching its global potential.

Innovators in large organizations struggle just as mightily as start-up founders. Trying to get your leadership to embrace your new idea, to give you the right team and resources to float your new initiative, to change the company’s well-worn status quo – that can be every bit as challenging as starting a company!

So what do you do? Stephen Covey says, “Communication is the most important skill in life.” Whether you’re in a garage or a Fortune 100 company, are you as skilled a communicator as you need to be? Communication is the essential last mile in finding and motivating the right team, acquiring allies, evangelizing your vision, creating a strong culture and powerfully bonding with customers. Nothing will serve you and your vision better than developing exceptional communication skills.

In this next set of posts, we’ll look at how communicating well helps you become as great a leader and manager as you are a creator. And while we’re at it, we’ll look at things you can do to keep yourself resilient, resourced and sane as you make your idea a reality. You can become who your idea needs you to be!