Sometimes a good idea comes from unexpected places. And sometimes those good ideas come together from multiple directions.
This multinational-but-very-American story starts in, of all places, Vietnam. With a British guy in Vietnam, to be exact.
Martyn Lewis is the founder of 3G Selling, a Santa Rosa, Calif.-based consultancy that provides support for sales teams. This past December, Martyn was in Vietnam on business when he happened to read a Vietnamese business journal with two articles that started bells ringing.
One was on the importance of managing cash flow and the other was on how small businesses can expand by developing different skills from the ones used to build the company. That, he thought, is it. What we need is more focus on management and innovation.
“Some people could say these are the basics. They are the basics,” Martyn said. “But these are the basics that can trap so many people.”
So with a little inspiration under his belt, Martyn headed back home, all the time remembering that story.
Fast forward a month, and it’s time for the annual State of the Union address. During that speech, President Obama announces the launch of Startup America, a new national campaign “to celebrate, inspire and accelerate high-growth entrepreneurship.” With the federal government partnering with the private sector, the core goals are to stimulate economic growth and job creation by supporting innovation.
The idea hit home for Martyn.
“President Obama said we’ve got to be innovative and we’ve got to be competitive,” Martyn said. “I couldn’t agree more with that.”
In initiatives like this, as in all things, training is a key path to innovation. Training can provide structure for growth, but it also helps open the mind to new ideas, new solutions, and new approaches.
But as many other presidents and business leaders have learned, a good idea is just the beginning. The next step – the really big next step – is to put the plan into action.
“It takes a lot more than people suspect,” Martyn said. “That’s the curve we have to get ahead of. It takes passion, it takes skill. We have to get the right skills in the right people’s hands.
“Passion is the fuel that lights the fire,” he added. “You enable it. That’s the way we’re going to fuel it and enable it, so people can move forward before they run out of passion.”
So far – and it’s only been a few months – we haven’t seen much passion beyond the initial launch, but the Startup America Partnership is up and running at www.startupamericapartnership.org . Where it goes from here will be interesting to watch, and it’ll be particularly fascinating for training leaders. It’s also an opportunity for training suppliers … as Martyn knows.
“I feel so passionate about these topics. What an opportunity,” Martyn said. “How do we keep them going? We have to enable it and support the heck out of it. It’s not one person with passion and an idea. We have to go way beyond that. We have to enable people to turn it into a competitive business reality.”
