It's been (almost) full blue sky over Northampton, England this last few days... rare in Britain. Weather is all too unpredictable in our little backwater of the world which is why we've made it our most prevalent talking point as a nation. If there was a national pastime beyond gardening it would be talking about the weather!
US Tech Solutions is a global business and so I regularly find myself speaking with guys and girls in India and in the hotter states in the USA like Florida and California. In those spots I'm sure blue skies day after day are far more common.
I was reflecting on this today... business is a bit like the weather because some days are clear blue skies while other days are far more unpredictable and unpleasant.
I take a regular half hour walk at lunch to make sure I have a clear head for the afternoon session. During this time I will make an effort to look up at the sky instead of where I'm putting my feet. I've found this takes a conscious effort. It's all too easy to look down at the floor and never lift your head. In my reflective moment I wondered if I would bother to look up at the blue sky if it was ALWAYS blue sky. Would I bother to take notice of it at all if I were in LA, Florida or Pune when in all probability the sky would be completely blue?
Then it struck me (no, not the low hanging branch silly, the THOUGHT).
I'm always working with business people to extract new value from their customer insights and data. This work typically requires an investment of management capacity on looking inwardly at systems and processes. But the PURPOSE behind this work is normally to become better at 'listening to customers' and apply the learning lessons. What can happen, and so often does, is that managers start to forget about why they began these projects - somehow the emotional reasons behind such projects can get 'lost' - and one finds the focus of discussion is on IT systems and data... the mechanical stuff. One reason for this is because business landscapes don't visibly change every second so it can become difficult to justify investing in looking up at the sky. One has an instinct to concentrate of looking where one is going rather than investing time looking into the distance or up in the air - because it's unlikely to have changed.
And yet... business is about the small margins. Competitive advantage is normally found on the fringe of a proposition. New strategies can come from external impacts that nobody in the management team was looking for. How do I know this? Because I've spent a decade helping businesses to find the unusual connections in their data that show real promise for new products and services, new up-sell opportunities and ways to streamline processes to cut costs. Any thoughtful STRETCH STRATEGY focuses 80% on the core and 20% on the margins.
How many of the great game-changing ideas and stretch strategies came from looking 'down at your feet' - where the business is going? Answer. Very few indeed.
So please... think about your business day and how much of it is spent looking up to the sky to search for those small differences that have interest. And if your sky is normally blue anyway, look all the more harder.
Ian.
US Tech Solutions is a global business and so I regularly find myself speaking with guys and girls in India and in the hotter states in the USA like Florida and California. In those spots I'm sure blue skies day after day are far more common.
I was reflecting on this today... business is a bit like the weather because some days are clear blue skies while other days are far more unpredictable and unpleasant.
I take a regular half hour walk at lunch to make sure I have a clear head for the afternoon session. During this time I will make an effort to look up at the sky instead of where I'm putting my feet. I've found this takes a conscious effort. It's all too easy to look down at the floor and never lift your head. In my reflective moment I wondered if I would bother to look up at the blue sky if it was ALWAYS blue sky. Would I bother to take notice of it at all if I were in LA, Florida or Pune when in all probability the sky would be completely blue?Then it struck me (no, not the low hanging branch silly, the THOUGHT).
I'm always working with business people to extract new value from their customer insights and data. This work typically requires an investment of management capacity on looking inwardly at systems and processes. But the PURPOSE behind this work is normally to become better at 'listening to customers' and apply the learning lessons. What can happen, and so often does, is that managers start to forget about why they began these projects - somehow the emotional reasons behind such projects can get 'lost' - and one finds the focus of discussion is on IT systems and data... the mechanical stuff. One reason for this is because business landscapes don't visibly change every second so it can become difficult to justify investing in looking up at the sky. One has an instinct to concentrate of looking where one is going rather than investing time looking into the distance or up in the air - because it's unlikely to have changed.
And yet... business is about the small margins. Competitive advantage is normally found on the fringe of a proposition. New strategies can come from external impacts that nobody in the management team was looking for. How do I know this? Because I've spent a decade helping businesses to find the unusual connections in their data that show real promise for new products and services, new up-sell opportunities and ways to streamline processes to cut costs. Any thoughtful STRETCH STRATEGY focuses 80% on the core and 20% on the margins.
How many of the great game-changing ideas and stretch strategies came from looking 'down at your feet' - where the business is going? Answer. Very few indeed.
So please... think about your business day and how much of it is spent looking up to the sky to search for those small differences that have interest. And if your sky is normally blue anyway, look all the more harder.
Ian.
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