Take a different view and solve your problems faster

Google

By Gary Peacock

Do you have a problem that seems impossible to solve? One reason could be how the problem is stated. Typically, you see a problem from one view: from one perspective. But as JK Galbraith says, sometimes this protects us from thinking.

"The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking."

John Kenneth Galbraith

One way to get a different view

Imagine you have a problem with the productivity of your team.  You might state your problem as: Increase the productivity of my team. To get a different view, a simple technique is to rewrite the problem as a bigger problem and rewrite the problem as a smaller problem.

A bigger problem might be: increase the productivity of my department; A smaller problem might be increase the productivity of Barbara. So summarising you now have three different views of the problem.

 

Now you have three different views to choose from.  When you do this you will find this simple exercise forces you to create different views of the same problem.  This may make you realise the fastest way to solve your problem is to solve a bigger problem. Or you may find the fastest way to solve your problem is to solve the smaller problem. Even if you choose to solve the original problem, you have three different views of the problem and will solve the problem faster. This simple tool helps us quickly get different points of view.

“It is a narrow mind which cannot look at a subject from various points of view.”

 George Eliot

Other ways of getting a different view

"A desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world."

John le Carre

A quick way to get a different view is to leave your desk and talk to others, especially customers.  A client was recently complaining about an unresponsive and inflexible IT department not being willing to make it faster and easier for salespeople to access systems when out of the office.  A quick way of getting IT to change is to send them out for a day or two with a salesperson to visit customers.  As they see and experience the pain of using systems outside the office, they will start to find ways to improve the systems, fast. 

As Margaret Attwood says, Reality simply consists of different points of view. A quick way to get a different perspective is ask others from different departments how they see the problem. In every organization there are people who always have a different view to most other people. Find those people in your organization and have a coffee with them. They will always give you a different view. Remember the words of Comedian, George Carlin: 

“Some people see the glass half full. Others see it half empty.

I see a glass that's twice as big as it needs to be.”

What is your innovation appetite?

Google

By Peter Browne

If you want to achieve breakthrough change to grow revenue and profits, why not try innovation? However, Innovation has become an overused buzz word, and there are many assumptions made when the term is used.

Before undertaking any strategic planning with innovation in mind, it is critical to be clear on your organisation’s innovation appetite. At a minimum the innovation appetite must be agreed between the board and CEO.

The Innovation Spectrum

At one end of the spectrum innovation simply means doing what we currently do better or differently. In many industries incremental improvement can be enough to keep current customers satisfied, and maintain an edge over competitors. This approach is very low risk, easy to implement but has lower upside potential.

The other end of the innovation spectrum is developing new products and services that solve unmet needs of the marketplace, for example; products such as the iPhone/iTunes/App Store or low cost airlines. New products for unmet needs are typically much higher risk and higher return if they meet the needs of the market, but equally pose the risk of being abject failures.

So your organisation’s innovation appetites and risk appetites are closely correlated. It is almost impossible to introduce a more risky kind of innovation into a traditional, risk averse organisation, without some burning platform for change (and by then it is usually too late).

Developing Strategy

Understanding what innovation means to your organisation and your industry is essential. Being clear on this makes the process for developing strategy far smoother, as the boundaries can be set at the outset providing a framework for developing strategy.

For example, before undertaking strategy work we ask organisations to consider these questions:

• Will our focus be limited to existing products and services, or are you open to identifying new products and services?
• Are you focusing on the currently geographies served, or potential new geographies, even global?
• If new products and services are to be scoped what it the minimum potential market for them to be worth pursuing?
• What funding is available to fully evaluate and commercialise a new product or service?

Answering these questions up front provides clear boundaries for the strategy development team, and prevents wasted investment in time and money pursuing strategies that ultimately don’t get past the first hurdle.

Whether working with a customer on a Blue Ocean Strategy or change that is more incremental, we apply our expertise to set the foundations for developing strategy successfully. Contact us on +61 2 9450 1040 to discuss how adopting a different approach can help your company achieve a breakthrough change to grow revenues and profit.

Solving Impossible Problems: What are you assuming?

by Gary Peacock

As we strive to solve our impossible business problems, most of us are held in chains.

 "Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken."

- Warren Buffet

In business, the chains that stop us solving impossible problems are our assumptions. Most of us don't know what we are assuming.  Our assumptions bounce around inside our brain unchallenged. To solve our impossible problems we must examine our assumptions. However, we can’t do this unless they are in writing.

Assumptions affect Strategic Customers and Strategic Negotiations

The American actor, Henry Winkler once wisely said: “Assumptions are the termites of relationships”. Too often when we are called in to investigate losing a strategic customer we find the supplier has assumed the customer simply wants the same product but cheaper or faster. Or the supplier assumes their customer’s strategy is the same as it was 5 years ago. So, to protect your relationships with strategic customers, ask regularly, what are we assuming? 

As well as affecting strategic customers, assumptions affect strategic negotiations. More than 20 years ago, I remember a negotiator urging me to test my assumptions. He rewrote the word assume as Ass-U-Me to remind me that if I did not test my assumptions, I would assume and that would make an ass out of you and me. I never forgot that lesson that assuming is bad for both sides of a negotiation.

Practical Tips

"The way to keep yourself from making assumptions is to ask questions."

-Don Miguel Ruiz

 Ask: What are you assuming? Write a list as quickly as you can. Don’t hesitate. Simply writing a list is often enough to help you break the chains holding you from solving the problem. Often, as soon as you see the assumptions in writing you know the assumption is wrong and you see another solution to your impossible problem.

If you need to analyse the assumptions further, try this. Once you have a list, number the assumptions and then ask two more questions:

1. How uncertain is the assumption? (low or high)
2. How important is the assumption? (low or high)

You can then map your assumptions in a simple 2 by 2 diagram (See example below).  Investigate further, those assumptions that you are highly uncertain and important to your business.

  

“Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won't come in.”

 - Isaac Asimov

Growth customers - Identify the hidden gems in your account base

By Peter Browne
To determine which accounts to manage strategically, companies typically use revenue as their main criteria. On one level this makes sense. Managing accounts strategically requires a large investment in time and resources, so receiving adequate revenue to justify this investment is valid.

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Do your people feel responsible for innovation?

By Gary Peacock
The last question Gary Hamel asked in his short 9-minute video was: Do you feel personally responsible for innovation? How can you do this?

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