I have been trying to write a minimum of one post a month.  I know it should be more frequent but it’s a reasonable goal which I plan to improve upon.  I find myself on the last day of the month without an entry but I have the beginnings of this post as a draft.  Interestingly the topic, reinvention, is topical given that New Year is typically a time that people address these types of issues.  So here goes.

One of my dominant personal themes is “reinventing myself.”  This has been something I have done for many years.  I’m addressing this because I’ve taken what some might think is a pretty dramatic change in my work.  I spend many years in traditional media, first on the creative side followed by many years selling.  I am now working on business development with an online marketing company plus doing marketing for a local garden centre.

Each year, going into a new fiscal year with new budgets (do they ever give you a smaller budget) I would go through my reinvention process.  My philosophical approach I wrote about a few years ago in “A Sports Analogy.”  In a nutshell, my process is designed to analyse changes that have taken place in my industry, may marketplace an my environment, things that are external.  Things are always changing, one needs to be aware of the changes and give thought to what impact the changes will have, positive and negative.  After this analysis I then try to identify what changes I need to make to continue to perform at a high level.  Do I need to learn a new skill, focus on a new market segment, seek help from a new mentor?

Seth Godin wrote “Ways to Reinvent Yourself” (Nov. 2012) for Success Magazine.  Godin uses terms like “transformation,” “reset button” and “overhaul.”  I disagree with his approach.  I recommend an evolutionary process over revolutionary.  Darren Hardy in his book “The Compound Effect,” subtitle “Multiplying your success one simple step at a time,”says big change comes from a series of small changes.

Further to this is the Japanese concept of kaizen.  Kaizen is Japanese for “improvement” and as a philosophy of continuous improvement.  In a business setting this involves everyone in the organization and involves all aspects of the business.

So as we enter 2014 I encourage you to spend some time with reinvention.  However, don’t feel that it should only be used at the New Year, it’s a tool that should be used for continuous improvement.