Kenneth Denman-Creating Value in a Growing Business

You've got to use market experience to inform the building process. This is somewhat obvious, but just keep asking yourself this question: am I solving a problem that people are willing to pay for? I've lived my life in a lot of companies where engineers ruled, and engineers come up with great ideas, and sometimes the problem solving can get out in front of the market problem. And you've got to ask yourself, are you solving a problem that people are willing to pay for? Because if you're not, you're not doing work worth doing, frankly, or work worth funding. On the design side, build capacity for periodic reinvention. Because again, your worst nightmare is something good happens. You don't want to be in a situation— your worst nightmare is something good happens and you can't address it. You can't handle it. You can't take advantage of the opportunity. So you have to build capacity for periodic bends. You have to be able to tack when you need to tack. Capture and capital. You've got to be a learning organization, your people individually, your organization collectively. And you've got to be willing and able to turn on a dime. And I probably say, hey, you know what? I was wrong more often than I would like to admit. But if you aren't listening to people, surrounding yourself with people that are smarter than you and listening to them, you're probably not going to— you're going to sub-optimize. You're just going to sub-optimize.