Before You Tackle Your Next Upgrade, Make Sure You’ve Got Your Fundamentals In Place

Starting points; basics; fundamentals…

If you don’t start well, you’ll have real trouble ending up well.

If you don’t get the basics right, then you’ll have real trouble moving beyond the basics effectively.

There is a long, long list of basics.  One “synonym” of such basics is “Core Competencies.”  From Wikipedia:

A core competency is a concept in management theory originally advocated by CK Prahalad, and Gary Hamel, two business book writers. In their view a core competency is a specific factor that a business sees as being central to the way it, or its employees, works. It fulfills three key criteria:

1. It is not easy for competitors to imitate.
2. It can be re-used widely for many products and markets.
3. It must contribute to the end consumer’s experienced benefits.

But the phrase, “core competencies,” has grown to mean a more general statement of mastery of “basic abilities” needed for a specific endeavor/job. Consider this (source here)”

A core competency is fundamental knowledge, ability, or expertise in a specific subject area or skill set. For example, an individual who becomes certified as a Microsoft Certified Software Engineer is said to have a core competency in certain Microsoft systems and networks.

But, in this constantly improving, constant-call-to-innovate world, we seem to be perpetually and forever in “upgrade” mode.  It’s always time to improve, tweak, upgrade.  Another day, another upgrade…

So, recently I heard a stop-you-in-your-tracks line from an astute City Manager, Ron Olson, from Corpus Christi:

If you don’t have the fundamentals in place, it’s very hard to upgrade anything…

Companies and organizations all around us fail to make the changes they need to compete and flourish in the modern era – the era of the “new normal.”  (Maybe the ability to change is a core competency – a “fundamental”).  But I like what Mr. Olson said:  most challenges come from our inability to fully master the fundamentalss.   You know, the Bull Durham kind of wisdom:

“This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball…”

First, get the fundamentals right.  Then, upgrade.  I think that is the order to follow… — Although, if you wait until you get the fundamentals perfect, you may never upgrade…  Quite a challenge, isn’t it?