The Mission of Ortega Group is ‘To be Uganda’s Most Innovative Company’ and that defines the paths we choose to take every day. We take on everyday with more boldness. We try out things that other organizations have not tried. We invert solutions and think in what’s possible not what has been done. We think less in constraints and more in opportunities and possibilities. While others see chaos, we see learning threads, we see better learning curves. We wake up everyday to make the complex simple.
But why? Because at the very foundation of Ortega Group is ‘Courage’. If there’s one value that sums up the work we do at Ortega Group, it’s courage. For it was courage that enabled Ian Ortega to quit his job and venture into the unknown. The result today is Ortega Group.
Organizations keep wondering, what’s that secret to unlocking risk taking, to unlocking bold ideas within the organization. It all comes down to courage. Organizations should teach their employees to be more courageous. Decisions are delayed in organizations because there’s a courage deficiency. When organizations are deficient on courage, they atrophy.
One leader comes to mind, and that’s Juliana Kagwa. In her days as a Marketing Director at Uganda Breweries Limited (UBL), ‘Ju’ as many loved to shorten her name had the famous question: ‘What mistake would you make that would be hard for UBL to recover from?’ It was a provocation for the marketers to seize up great ideas and execute them as boldly as possible. To cross the mistake chasm and think in what’s possible on the other side. Think not what could go wrong, but what could go right if you moved boldly on a great idea. If you executed something meticulously.
Innovation that many organizations strive to unlock is nothing but a function of courage. It takes courage to try new paths. It takes courage to uncover new supply chains. It’s all down to courage. Think more in courage buckets. If you can fill up employee buckets with more courage, you have an unstoppable organization.
Photo by Oliver Cole on Unsplash