Bloghound

During the holiday party season I asked a simple question that
surprisingly took many business executives by surprise: “What are your
biggest opportunities for next year?”

“Good question. I hadn’t really thought about business in that way,” almost all replied. Then they got quite animated.You
see, most of us get bogged down in the “how to run” our business, our
organization, our projects. How to increase customer loyalty 2
percentage points. How to generate more sales leads. How to improve
order pace.. How to increase efficiencies. How to implement new
systems. How to measure performance.Too much “how” and not
enough “what” is a recipe for slow growth, both professionally and for
business. Plus, let’s be honest, too much focus on “how” without enough
“what” can be exhausting and demoralizing. It’s far more energizing and
strategic to ask questions like, “What are the opportunities? What are
the biggest obstacles? What’s most relevant to our prospects? What new
partnerships might help us grow more quickly?”

Peter Drucker has
long advised business executives to look outside the company – and
their industries — to observe new patterns and connections. By doing
so, we’re then able to see opportunities and focus more on “what.”“For strategy, we need organized information about the environment,” he wrote in Peter Drucker on the Profession of Management.
“Strategy has to be based on information about markets, customers and
non customers; about technology in one’s own industry and others; about
the changing world economy. Major changes start outside an
organization.”

Yet research geeks, take note. Drucker warns
about going too deep. He learns enough to see patterns and important
connections but not enough to lose his point of view.Gary
Hamel, another of my favorite business thinkers, says that “a fresh way
of seeing is often more valuable than sheer brainpower.“One of
the reasons many people fail to fully appreciate what’s changing is
because they’re down at the ground level, lost in a thicket of
confusing, conflicting data. You have to make time to step back and ask
yourself, ‘What’s the nig story that cuts across all these little
facts.’”

Look outside in 2005. You might just see how to be different in ways that can make a real difference.

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