Creativity does not always imply a radical idea; rather the enhancement or enrichment of the current thinking produced through the creative thinking patterns. Sharing his thoughts on creative individuals, Tyrone Carroll, CEO of THREE6FIVE assert, “Creative people are always thinking, challenging themselves with new ideas and thoughts. They are always wondering how things could be done in a better or more efficient manner and considering what more could be done to improve the people’s lives/work/business experience they are responsible for. Jotting downs ideas occurring to them as well as taking those creative ideas and turning them into real actionable events and results.”
Tyrone also possesses a beautiful perception towards life and success. According to him, life is made up of two types of people; the givers and the takers. If individuals surround themselves with givers, grow and empower them, they, in turn, earn givers loyalty which is the most important thing in a business, and a critical trait to look for in one’s leadership team. Furthermore, Tyrone believes that the more people give in life, the more they receive. However, this can become quite hard to maintain in business as leaders sometimes feel as if team members, customers or suppliers are just taking and not returning what they have put in front for them. This is a lesson I have had to learn as a leader and accept that everyone has their own agenda and goals, and when these goals diverge, so will the business partnerships and relationships.
Going down the memory lane, as a child, Tyrone dreamt of becoming a military or commercial pilot. However, due to personal and financial turbulences, Tyrone’s dream of joining the Air Force remained unfulfilled. Though he did serve in the military, these bitter-sweet experiences of life made him realize that if he really wanted to achieve something, he had to completely dive in, work hard and make honest efforts to ultimately become successful. As the years went by, through immense hard work and a bit of luck, Tyrone found a career path in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) with a focus on IP Networking.
Even though Tyrone never envisioned or planned to become a leader of the company, it was a role that he developed over time. Today, Tyrone enjoys leading, making decisions, helping people, making a difference, learning and growing from the mistakes he had personally made in order to be a better leader. Sharing his experience on facing major pitfalls and challenges, Tyrone reveals, “The general pitfalls and challenges that I came across were a weak economy, political and currency instability in South Africa, operational cash flow challenges linked to debtor sluggishness and supplier encroachment on traditional system integrator service offerings.” However, these obstacles have to date not deterred Tyrone as his mother’s inculcated values and morals, hard work, honesty and never lie, have stood the test of time.
THREE6FIVE: Empowering African Communications with Extraordinary IP Services
THREE6FIVE is an end-to-end IP Network and Systems solutions provider company located in Johannesburg, South Africa. Tyrone along with his team design, supply, build, monitor, maintain, support and upgrade these solutions as per their customers’ requirements. The leading IP service provider has over 600 customers across 4 continents and in 30 countries, offering Professional Network Services, Systems Integration, Network Cloud Services, and Cybersecurity solutions.
THREE6FIVE has the knowledge and skills to not only build an IP network but also support users’ current network. Tyrone’s skilled team works with clients’ technical team to provide guidance on equipment and selection, network architecture, strategic design choices or product development. A key focus of THREE6FIVE moving forward will be Network Software Automation and Analytics, Managed Services and an even greater focus on Cybersecurity.
Leading by an Example
The dynamic CEO of THREE6FIVE is a hands-on leader. He does his best not to interfere with his team leaders; instead supports them as and when needed. This is Tyrone’s balancing act as he does not want to micromanage tasks. He also feels that team members need to trust their leaders and correspondingly have enough room to learn and grow in. Otherwise, leaders will end up creating a group of “YES” team members, who will never disagree with them or come up with their own set of ideas and push back for the good of the company. Being a CEO does not mean one is always right, or even has the right ideas or concepts all the time. Leaders must be secure in their own right and open to others views and perceptions.
In regards to THREE6FIVE’s growth, Tyrone is completely involved in meetings and engages with his perspective, new and long-term customers which are actually the key ingredients for building and maintaining relationships.
Tyrone’s Opinion on the Existence of Creativity Gap between Generations
“I do not think that there is a creative gap; young people are possibly more creative and have an intuitive out-of-the-box way of thinking, as present in fewer mainstreams though indoctrinated older folks like us. However, they have a challenge with execution and commitment, expecting instant results and gratification and unable to understand that unfortunately most things in life do not happen overnight, but require years of hard work with little reward at first. Likewise, we older folks could and should work on learning to listen and open up to hearing bright ideas and thoughts from the young generation.”
