Feb 23rd, 2021
Defining Success
Part 7: Perseverance
Written by: Jesse LaDousa, Chief Executive Officer
The arctic freeze finally broke this past weekend, and we were treated to temperatures in the mid-20’s with some light snow. Enough of a warmup to almost let your mind start to wander towards Spring’s inevitable arrival. The warmer weather also gave us a chance to finally venture outside and remind ourselves what fresh air that didn’t immediately freeze your lungs felt like.
We packed up the snowboard and ski gear, filled a cooler with lunch and snacks, loaded the kids in the car, and headed to one of the small ski hills down the Mississippi river for a day outside.
I’ve been snowboarding most of my life, as has my wife. We plan vacations around ski season, have our favorite mountain spots and are always exploring new ones. Like most parents we encourage our kids to try many new activities and hobbies but given our passion for this sport, they were both on skis by 3 years old and through some patience and encouragement on our part, have grown to both love the sport.
Both the kids started on skis, giving them a foundation to build from and then allowing them to make the choice if they wished to switch to snowboarding later. My older daughter, now 12, decided at the beginning of this season she was done with the skis and would only be snowboarding from here on out.
After 9 years of ski lessons and practice she had become quite a good skier. Switching to a snowboard this season brought some initial frustration as she worked to make the transition and relearn what had become second nature on skis. We had a few tough outings, and several talks about keeping a positive attitude, learning from your frustrations and persevering.
As I watched her come flying down the hill this last weekend, I was proud that she stuck with it and kept practicing. The smile on her face and joy you can see radiating off her, knowing that she’s accomplishing a personal goal is fantastic.
This idea of perseverance got me thinking about how we approach our project work and how great teams have a natural inclination to persevere through tough spots. At Clientek, we are lucky in that we’ve built a tremendous amount of trust with our customers. That means they come to us with their tough problems. We are privileged to help them with hard, complicated projects.
These projects come with challenges, both technical and interpersonal. We find ourselves both implementing new technologies that perhaps the team isn’t overly familiar with as well as occasionally balancing high stress situations. We coach our teams frequently on staying positive, keeping emotions in check and have the diligence to see the work to completion. This perseverance allows us to continue to deliver successfully to our customers and generates a huge amount of pride for our teams. Something I am also very proud to be a part of.