Jenson Button: The Persistence Principle

I was delighted to see that Jenson Button won the F1 Grand Prix world championship this weekend. Not only is it great to have another British winner, but it is also another brilliant example of the power of persistence.

Button, 29, won his first race three years ago -- in his 113th grand prix! And, in contrast to Lewis Hamilton, who won the championship in his second season, it has taken him 10 hard seasons of grand prix racing to achieve his ultimate ambition.

Button's career has, up until this season, been one of unfulfilled promise and, let's face it, failure. But this season he has demonstrated what the right mix of talent, persistence and a little bit of luck can bring.

It is not only our individual careers that benefit from persistence; organisational success is also often a triumph of dogged determination rather than superiority from the start. For example:

• Tesco needed over five years of testing of its Express format before they found a model that could be rolled out. They now have a multi-billion pound business from this store format in the UK alone.
• It took Sergey Brin and Larry Page over four years to turn their initial concept for Google into a business with a clear (pay-per-click) model for making money.
• Sir James Dyson and his team needed five years and over 5,000 prototypes to perfect the design for their iconic, bagless vacuum cleaner.

1. Clarify your objectives. Have you set specific and grounded objectives and do you know what success actually looks like? For Tesco, it was to develop a profitable convenience store format, and for James Dyson it was to develop a bagless vacuum cleaner. Can you state your objectives with similar levels of clarity and precision?
2. Separate tactics from objectives. Your initial attempts at finding a solution are simply tactics to achieve your objective. It is likely that the final solution will be very different from your first try. You need to be flexible with your tactics, but you need to be consistent with your objectives.
3. Fail as quickly and as cheaply as possible. At a recent seminar I hosted, Mike Harris, the founder of the two innovative banks, First Direct and Egg, argued that the secret to breakthrough innovations was an ability to fail quickly and cheaply. This means rapid prototyping, focusing on pace and avoiding major investments.

But, experience tells me that this isn't the way it works. Instead, demonstrating the necessary determination to overcome the inevitable failures, and having an insatiable appetite to 'find a way' are the keys to most corporate success stories.

(Pic: MatHampson cc2.0)