Vision and Staffing: Principles of Success
Message from Mr. Russell Ellwanger—TowerJazz CEO & TPSCo Chairman
The principles that define and produce fulfillment, security and achievement (i.e. success) form a “unified field theory” applying to the business world as well as in one’s personal life.
These principles can be distilled into two groupings;
Vision
Staffing.
A vision defines required staffing. Correct staffing enables the initial vision, and gives input for the vision to evolve. As the vision evolves, the staffing may be refined and/or added to. This cycle is continuous for those who relentlessly drive towards excellence.
Vision & Staffing in your Personal Life
At a young age, everyone should create a vision for themselves by asking:
- What values do I wish to adhere to?
- What “brand” will be attached to my name?
- Who should I emulate to develop these values and my brand?
- What are my joys?
- What hobbies, activities and sports excite and inspire me?
- Who can I talk with, be mentored by, or imitate to better understand the principles underlying these activities?
- What videos/presentations/articles/books should I study?
- What activities and thought groups provide me peace?
- Which acquaintances and friends inspire me?
- With whom are interactions natural—leaving me uplifted, confident and desirous to learn?
- What interactions leave me empty or anxious?
- How can I add value to my family, to my community, to the world?
- What are the skills that I need to develop in order to produce value?
- What do I need to do to develop these skills?
The answers to the “what” questions should form a person’s vision. The “who,” “which” and “how” answers should form his or her staffing. Parents are a big part of a young person’s staffing. This is the first inequality encountered in life. Some parents are excellent and provide an environment of excellence. Others are less so. Hence, personal character comes into play at an early age. A person has no say over their temporal “birthright,” but his or her personal control is accretive from that point forward. As such, a person must continually re-evaluate their answers and assess their progress to these questions, making adjustments when needed, in order to successfully move through the course of life and fulfill their vision statement.
As skills are multiplied, personal goals achieved, and targets attained, self-confidence grows. As confidence grows, an individual will take on greater levels of challenges and as a natural consequence, their circles of association begin to change and migrate towards those people who are also growing through the elixir of positively confronting big challenges. Personal security and peace is a strong function of one’s self awareness and self-confidence. The greater the degree of personal confidence, the greater one’s belief and consequent actions to be self-determinant, rather than being an acted upon element of a large system with little or no say over the outcomes.
Vision and Staffing in the Business World
When an individual receives the opportunity to lead a business enterprise, it is critical that he or she develop and express the vision. The vision defines the value that the enterprise will produce and the culture the organization will implement to produce it. The value proposition is nominally aligned to serve a market need. This can be achieved through many avenues such as:
- Serving an existing market with a different set of services, or better services
- A differentiated model of partnership with some or all of the customer base
- Creating a product that better serves the present demand, or one that creates a new demand
- A combination of the above.
Once an initial vision is formulated, careful consideration must be taken to create the correct staff to fulfill the vision. If creation is needed, or in other words the vision requires high levels of innovation prior to financing and execution, the staff must be heavily weighted to the side of innovation with other core capabilities, such as strict adherence to schedules and bureaucratic “tracking systems,” taking a lower priority in the staff. If the vision and corporate life cycle is at a point where the primary key for success is execution, the staff must be heavily weighted with a profile that can execute as the primary directive.
It is said, “The only leader who should not be replaced is the leader where most everyone in their staff is capable to replace them.” It is most critical to staff with strong people that not only execute to an initial vision, but also challenge and, most importantly, bring new ideas ‘to the table.’ If the initial vision is correct to a good degree, proper staffing will not just make progress to achieve it with the associated success, BUT will add thoughts, feelings and ideas that allow the vision to grow. Much the same as an inspired high school teacher expands the vistas of a curious and driven student, capable and inspired staff members expand the vision and vistas of the company. As the enterprise grows, customers must become a part of the staffing. This happens through both actively pursuing customer feedback and quickly acting upon it, and maybe more importantly, enabling the future through long term partnerships (e.g. multiple generation roadmap development).
A solid company with strong vision and excellent staffing has few if any projects that have a cradle to grave life cycle. Vision and staffing (including customer partnerships) should ensure that all activities are ‘cradle to cradle.’ Good activities staffed by capable, passionate people in an environment that allows such employees to flourish will most always, if not always, drive additional multiple inspired activities.
We thank our customers for having validated our strategy and growing us from a $100M annual revenue rate to exceeding $1B in run rate. We appreciate your trust and value your inputs. We are implementing several changes to better serve you—together taking on additional challenges to create greater value whilst utilizing the full manufacturing capacity which we have added to the company.
Sincerely,
Russell Ellwanger
CEO, TowerJazz
Chairman, TPSCo
