To Grow Your Business, Embrace Its Roots and Wings

Editor’s note: This piece is part of our Columnist Network series, which explores the tactical thoughts and actions from Adweek’s community of high-level experts. Today, Rishad Tobaccowala shares his weekly newsletter—he outlines how an understanding of our own duality leads to strong relationships, balanced leadership and ingenuity. To succeed as an individual or as a firm, one must have roots and wings. Roots provide stability, a place to stand, a passed-along tradition and a sense of history. But roots alone, which are important to ensure one does not get blown away by the winds of change, might anchor one too much to the past and to a status quo that may no longer be relevant. Thus, there's the importance of wings—the ability to raise oneself and see above the horizon, to look down with new perspectives and to ensure that the roots that feed us do not wither by failing to adapt to a new world. Roots nourish via what we were, where we came from and what we've done. Wings encourage us to go where we need to and to blaze new trails, which will lay down tomorrow's roots and are a highway to what we will accomplish. Why roots are critical We are stories. Whether we are individuals or companies, we all have beginnings, origin stories either real or concocted: Once upon a time. Day one. In the beginning. This past, for companies, creates rituals, motivational stories, moments of crisis, provenance, proof and a reason to believe. Tales that encrust every key financial event like barnacles. The almost-went-out-of-business moments, the eureka breakthrough moments, the IPO moment or the key acquisition. As people move on and locations change, the stories linger—often shape-shifting with the passage of time. Remembered history may not be history, but in it, much is rooted. Roots are critical not just for companies but also for individuals. Personal roots—shaped by the people and places we grew up with, first losses, loves, jobs and mentors—help make us what we are. Then, key decisions and roads taken or not taken bring us to the present. We plumb, narrate, garnish and embellish these roots to explain why and where we are today. The tattoo moments we wear are invisible scars or badges that nobody sees but that mark our days. People, skills, relationships are forged and become part of our roots. Reputations, brands, trust and networks are built by time and help us navigate the sway of change by keeping us rooted in what matters, disciplined in skills, protected by a trampoline of earned trust. Over the years, we are forged in the foundry and furnace of experiences that enable us to become the force we are. This enables faster action and movement than the uninitiated, since what others must learn comes as second nature. Roots matter in relationships, in honing of skills and much more. The magic of wings While every individual and firm starts somewhere, it is also a journey. Just as a tree that begins with a seed initiating a root, many of us are lucky to be nourished by the water and light of life provided by families, school and friends to reach upward and branch out. We take wing. Wings are fueled by dreams. To do the unimaginable and the impossible. To cross the horizon and go where no one has gone before. It is the fuel that drives not just entrepreneurs but all of us who take a risk, switch careers, leave a city or country to go to another. It fuels immigrants who leave with nothing but a dream for a better life. Wings provide the wind for artists who start with a blank sheet of paper, a piece of rock, an empty space that they convert into stories, songs, plays, paintings, movies, sculpture and more. While the roots, the status quo, and the ground below us are all real, we often take wing to the unseeable, the unknowable. We take a leap into the void that sometimes results in innovation and creativity when we land. Every individual has wings. It is just a question of when and if we get the chance to use them. Why combining roots and wings is important If every individual and company is a story about a place we came from, it is also about a place we are going to. We all integrate the dualities of roots and wings. Too rooted and we may wither away as changing times and climate bring drought to the place and way we were. Too winged and we may be blown away in the gusts of change. Too rooted and we may be seen as old-school, hidebound to tradition and inflexible. Too ready to fly with change may find us painted as unreliable, undisciplined and short-term oriented. Transformation is twisting ourselves and our companies into new shapes with the clay of what we were and new skills and pieces we acquire. To believe and better understand where you are going, people want to know where you came from. If you wish to record a new track, it helps—especially once you are no longer a beginner—to have a track record. So next time, ask yourself, your friends or your company or the companies you wish to partner with: What are the tattoo moments that made you what you are?What do you believe is key from the past to your future, and what should you be willing to leave behind?Where are you going, and what do you believe about tomorrow?What leaps of faith or acts of courage are you going to take to get there? And many of us will get to where we are going. This is because we got where we are today by continuously integrating, balancing and unifying yesterday and tomorrow, safety and risk, what we were and what we want to be. We are a mix of roots and wings.

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Rishad Tobaccowala