It's Not About Me

of money” into the reversing valve development— making it more efficient and cost effective even though sa les were very low. The “bean counters” at Ranco urged him to drop the product as it was just generating more “red ink”. E.C. Raney reminded them that he ran the company, and he would continue to spend the money whenever and wherever he felt the need! Ra nco* would go on to become the world’s largest producer of reversing valves for heat pumps. Heat pumps are a major heating/cooling business in most parts of the world today…especially in warmer climates (the unit cools more efficiently than it heats). Wa s E.C. Raney a visionary … or just stubborn (and lucky)? To be tremendously successful in this world…you need to BELIEVE in what you are doing (even if the people around you don’t know or don’t understand or don’t even care). * In 2007, Sanhua International, Inc. acquired the Ranco brand heat pump reversing valve business from Invensys controls. A side note: E. C. Raney was a very intense individual who worked very closely with customers in designing controls for new applications. It is said that on o ne trip he was so “wrapped up” in talking about his new control that when he reached into his suitcase to pull out the product sample, he pulled out his dirty underwear instead! On another occasion, Mr. Raney was so intent on developing a new application for a customer…that he immediately left the customer’s plant and flew back to Ranco in Columbus, Ohio to begin work on his new idea…only when he got back to Columbus did he remember that he had left his wife (who had been traveling with him) at the hotel in the other city! • Procrastination Procrastination is the cancer of American Business today…it “eats away” at the productivity of our society. Procrastination is the act of putting off today what could and perhaps should have been accomplished and putting it off to some later date. A successful person must be able to make reasonably good business decisions in a timely manner. There is no such thing as making the perfect decision. It is impossible to gather all the necessary information with which to decide. If you wait until you gather every tidbit of information conceivable, you will have gone way beyond any reasonable timeline. The world stops for no one. Failure to render a decision on a major issue or any issue for that matter is itself a decisio n… it is a decision to do nothing . Those individuals who think they are waiting to decide or have decided to postpone a decision are, in effect, “making a decision to do nothing”! There is no such thing as one best solution. It is true that some solutions may be better than others or more direct than others. Sometimes companies spend too much time trying to figure out how to get from point A to point B when they would be far better off to simply plot a course of action and begin the journey. Evaluate the positives and negatives and take an action…move toward the goal…continually making necessary adjustments at critical milestones as you approach it. That will usually give you an optimized path toward your goal or destination. Time waits for no one. You only pass this way once; you can not rewind the clock of life. One thing that you can NEVER get back is time…so use it wisely!

Morale: Wasting too much time searching for the perfect path only delays the start of the journey.

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