Jim Collins has a way of getting me thinking. Collins is a business researcher and bestselling author based in Boulder, Colorado.  I’ve read of a lot of his books lately, and you may have noticed his ideas pop up quite a bit already in this blog. If you’ve never read any of his stuff, do yourself a favour and go check him out.

In his newest book, Great By Choice, Collins (and his colleague Morten T. Hansen) explore why some companies seem to thrive in the face of adversity, while others crack under the pressure. One of the discoveries that they made is that the successful companies practice a “20-Mile March”, and the unsuccessful comparison companies don’t have such a practice.

Photo Credit: wwarby

What the Heck is a 20-Mile March?

Great question. As Collins and Hansen describe it, a 20-Mile March is the practice of consistently hitting prescribed targets, day after day, year after year, regardless of the prevailing conditions. For a company, that might mean beating the previous year’s revenues by 10% every year, regardless of the economic climate. In good years, stick to 10% so you don’t overextend yourself. In bad years, give it everything you’ve got to get that 10%. Just make it happen.

For an athlete training for a triathlon, that might mean you put in 2 hours on your bike every Saturday morning and Wednesday evening. If it’s beautiful out, fight the temptation to go longer so that you don’t tire yourself out and mess up training for your other disciplines. On crappy rainy days, when your nose is stuffed up and you’d rather just sit home and drink hot chocolate, you suck it up and get on your bike anyway.

In other words, you march your 20 miles every day. Period.

The Beauty of the 20-Mile March

There are some serious benefits for people and companies that practice a 20-mile march regimen. Establishing a 20-Mile March means that you have the discipline to stick it through rough patches and still achieve expected results (sales, hours on the bike, etc.). It also means you have the discipline to chill out when the going is easy. The beauty of this is that you have the energy and resources you need to push through bad times, and you’re producing results at a comfortable, predictable pace.

An Engineer’s 20-Mile March

What might an engineer’s 20-Mile March look like? There are probably as many answers for this question as there are engineers, but I think there are some common strands that can be pulled together.

1. Design Work – you could commit to pounding out X drawings or documents per week. The actual valie for X will depend on the complexity of the designs and what your role is specifically.
2. Communication – you could say you will check e-mail twice a day at 10:30 and 2:30 and respond to everything then and there. You could also do the same thing with phone messages. You could also commit to having your inbox 100% organized (i.e. empty) before you leave every day.
3. Personal Development – You could have a goal of reading a personal development book or taking a course once a month, or every 2 months.
4. Organization – You might consider keeping your to-do list up to date and never going a day without updating it.

I could go on and on, but the point is there are a ton of “benchmarkable” things you can commit to to stay on track and keep your work and career moving forward. The trick is to stick to it on days when you’d rather not, and not overdoing it even though you could get away with it.

Show Me Yours and I’ll Show You Mine

Here’s the scoop. I don’t have a 20-Mile March yet. Blaspheme, I know. Listen, I only just read the book, OK? Here’s what I’d like to do. I’m going to work on my 20-Mile March, and I’d like you to do the same. In the next week or so, I’ll post mine and walk you through why I chose what I chose.

In the meantime, I’d like you to post yours to the comments section below so we can all benefit from your wicked-cool ideas.

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