11 Keys to Success

Throughout my professional career, I’ve always been intrigued by the habits and behaviours of successful people. What sets them apart? What moves them to action? What motivates their decision making? This fascination has led me study successful people from a variety of industries, roles, and life stages. This observation has revealed to me that while everyone has their own individual approaches, some themes consistently surface – keys to individual success.

Below, I’ve itemized 11 common imperatives (or personal directives) that seem to contribute to personal success:

• State of mind is everything.

• Commit to your dreams

• Take action – goals without action are just dreams.

• Persevere and work hard.

• Keep learning.

• Tune in to the details.

• Focus time and money.

• Innovate – be different.

• Deal and communicate effectively.

• Be honest and deliver.

• Practice gratitude and humility.

Looking back at this list, it occurs to me that perhaps the same values that inform the behaviours and thinking we often see in successful individuals could also be a road map for the workings of successful companies. I’ve decided to test my theory. Using Architech as an example, here’s my overview of how our 6 Core Values ladder up to the 11 keys to success and our success as an organization, overall.

Let’s break it down:

1. Never fail a client

At the heart of this value is perseverance and hard work. It’s not always easy to delight clients, but hard work and focus pay off in the end. To ensure client satisfaction, we make sure to tune in to the details – it may not be the most exciting aspect of the work we do, but making sure we’re crossing our t’s and dotting our i’s means we stay on track — ensuring we’re building the right solution to meet clients’ needs. Never failing a client is also about continuous learning. As an organization, we keep learning so we can keep innovating — building Architech ‘Recipes for Success’ to increase the likelihood of repeatable positive outcomes for our clients.

2. Do the right thing

State of mind is everything. By focusing on doing the right thing, we consistently put clients’ and employees’ priorities at the front of the line. We partner with our clients to create exceptional experiences through innovation, human-centred design, and world-class engineering. In fact, we work with our clients to measure the impact our solutions have on their business.

3. Be open and collaborative

We focus on dealing and communicating effectively – with our clients and all of our stakeholders – and we pride ourselves on being honest and delivering on our promises. This sense of accountability is at the heart of our engagement focus with our clients.

4. Embrace change

At our core, Architech is a company of innovation. Unlike most companies in our sector, we focus on human-centred design, deep analytics understanding of our clients’ business, and world-class engineering to deliver solutions that drive more than 92% repeat business for us. Our innovation lab consistently iterates to improve the state of the art in many facets of computing and we apply these learnings to build unique capabilities for our client.

5. Think big

At Architech we take action because we understand that a goal without a plan is just a wish. Each month, we evaluate our strengths and identify areas for improvement. Then, we focus our time and money to develop plans to successfully move our business forward. We have a BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) to positively impacting the lives of one billion people by 2030, and we’re well on our way to making this a reality.

6. Grow our people

We are grateful for the engagements we work on with clients and are especially grateful for and humbled by the employees that represent Architech. Without employees willing to tackle challenging technology to make a difference for our clients, their organizations would be less successful and our work would have less meaning. Committing to this value means choosing challenging projects that help grow our people and that provide opportunities to grow and develop as part of the Architech family.

While the path to success varies across individuals and companies, it is rewarding to be part of an organization whose values and day-to-day actions are consistent with the 11 themes that I believe ‘make’ successful people. And, with this reflection in mind, it occurs to me to add 1 more directive to the list: never rest on your laurels. So, on that note, it’s time to get back to work!