Starting is Easy. Finishing is Hard. –Jason Calacanis
I really like this quote. Jason used it in the context of being an entrepreneur–it’s easy to come up with an idea, and to get a new business going. But to actually lift that business off the ground, and to “finish it”, meaning take it to the point of success (however you define it), is hard.
The same concept can be applied to the corporate world. The context is different, of course, but the truth remains. In the corporate world, rather than coming up with a new idea and turning it into a business, you are sitting within an organization of existing people, processes and tools, all trying to achieve common objectives. It is very easy to come up with new ways to move forward. In fact, many people spend their time continuously coming up with ideas on how to fix what is broken, or how to take the business to the next level. Conference calls follow, with many hours of discussion on how to proceed.
Actually taking any of these ideas through to completion, to where they are completely done and ready to go, is hard. There are many distractions in the corporate world that add to the challenge. But beyond the distractions lies the fact that sitting down and actually working through the implementation of an idea, from start to finish, is much harder than all of the stages that come before.
It is also more difficult to define success in the context of the corporate world. With a start-up, the goal is most likely to become profitable, and perhaps to eventually sell the business. In a corporate role, success is not always so obvious, although it does not need to be complicated. The key is to define what the end state should look like, in the best possible world, in as much detail as possible, and use that as your criteria for success.
Once you know where you are going, there is nothing left to do but the work itself. Above all, don’t surrender to distraction, and avoid the temptation to keep starting new projects instead of driving your current ones to fruition. Finishing is hard, but just like in the start-up world, it separates the real deals from the pretenders.
