Ideas

The potential of the average person is like a huge ocean
unsailed, a new continent unexplored, a world of possibilities waiting to
be released and channeled toward some great good. - Brian Tracy

As leaders our job is to take all the great potential bottled up in our organization, its social network, business network and other great ideas both in and out of the industry and deploy them in a manner that is both economically and politically feasible. As your leader, it is what I have spent most of my adult life trying to master.

How do we gather the great ideas of the organization? Most companies don't even have a process to hear the ideas of their people. Second how do you act on those ideas when everyone has a different idea of where the ship should be going? That's where the art of leadership comes in.

"You can't direct the wind, but you can adjust your sails." - German proverb

In today's economy, the leaders job is not to guess the next change of the wind (predict and prepare), the leader’s job is to create an agile organization that can react to "the winds of change" with the speed of an agile sailing team. A system that promotes team involvement and idea sharing so that the ideas created by people on the front line can be implement quickly at all levels. Any sailor will tell, you can't stay ahead of the wind, but if your team reacts quickly enough to the changing winds you will win the race.

At Signature Community, we set out to create systems in our organization that allow us to work quickly in a changing environment and react to the changing "winds". Our latest advancement in that process is ideas@asigaturecommunity.com. This is our brainstorming site that allows everyone in the organization to share their ideas to help us "Thrive in 2010". The ideas we have seen so far have been amazing. Ideas that could never be thought of in the corporate office in NY. Keep them coming!

We have even opened up our ideas@assignaturecommunity.com idea exchange to our vendors and residents for their ideas on how to make our communities a better place to live and work.

In times where we really have no idea what the immediate future holds it is good to know that we have great people helping us trim our sails to deal with these turbulent times.

Thanks everyone for making it happen at Signature Community and please share your ideas at ideas@asignaturecommunity.com.

Nick