CorporateCoach eNewsletter
Issue No. 71, 20th September 2004
CONTENTS
- Editorial:
How do you know what you know?
- Coaching
notes: How to get out of a rut
1.
Editorial: How do you know what you know?
 Some
years ago we ran a management development course for senior managers.
It was an unstructured course based on the principles of self directed
learning. On the Thursday evening, one of the participants rang his wife
and told her "You don't know what you don't know." He was amused
to tell us the next day that he thought this the most important learning
of the course, but that his wife was unimpressed!
More recently,
Donald Rumsfeld was much criticised in the UK for saying something similar.
But recognising this fact is a first stage to opening your mind to possibilities.
We have just
completed a seven month scenario planning exercise with a major UK trade
body. Several of the comments in the review were that there were no surprises
and that there was a consistency across the scenarios. We did in fact
know everything that had gone into the scenarios. This was not surprising
as the industry had contributed experts to build the database from which
the scenarios were selected. The thing about scenario planning is that
in retrospect you can see how the outcome developed. The difference from
strategic planning is that you cannot attempt to forecast it. However,
the development of five scenarios in some detail allows participants and
others later to 'experience' the reality at a different level from a technical
report. This means that they are more likely to confront them and that
they are more likely to plan in strategies for detecting early signs.
A story meant
to criticise consultants says that a consultant is someone who will borrow
your watch to tell you the time – and then charge you for the information.
I often tell this story to new clients and point out that if they were
not aware that the watch could tell them the time, did not know how to
use it or just had not bothered to think about the time, then the consultant
was indeed providing a service. Our job is not necessarily to bring new
information but to help develop awareness. Our objective is to transfer
skills/processes to our clients.
One delegate
complained that there was nothing new in the scenarios. However, there
had been a very long list of recommendations as a result of the exercise.
Would these have been generated by a simple strategy meeting?
One of my
favourite comments that I heard many years ago goes like this: "What
is talent? Talent is - easy to learn and easy to do." If you acquire
knowledge simply and easily, you might not notice that you have learned
it.
Sometimes,
it is a question not of "You don't know what you don't know."
but of "You don't realise what you do know."
Readers will
know that I am keen to develop our international contacts. Recently I
was able to meet again with Avinash Kirpal of the International Management
Institute in India. He recommended an article "How to get out of
a rut" by Paul Lemberg, which the author has kindly agreed for me
to publish.
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2.
Coaching notes: "How to get out of a rut"
Rut: "a
routine procedure, situation, or way of life that has become uninteresting
and tiresome."
And, not
surprisingly, unprofitable.
They say
a rut is a shallow grave with two open ends. The good news (good news?!)
is that the ends ARE still open, which means if you act fast, you just
might out of it.
How do we
get into these ruts anyway? Who would voluntarily lie down in that grave,
shallow or otherwise? Dr. Edward de Bono suggests that thoughts are pathways
literally 'etched' in our brain as electrical connections, that get strengthened
each time we think them – thus limiting our mental options. Just
like cow paths.
It all begins
when one of the cows wanders home from the field along a new path. Being
cows, others naturally follow, nicely beating down the grass. The next
evening our intrepid cow is a bit less bold, and follows her own freshly
trampled path, fellow cows in lockstep behind her. And so on, night after
night, widening the path into a footpath, which over time becomes hardened
into a dirt road. More time passes and the road is paved into a street,
then an avenue, a two-lane highway, and ultimately an interstate.
By the time
you come roaring up the onramp in your shiny SUV, your direction is all
mapped out in front of you. There's no way to turn, and no where to go
but towards the next exit. If you want to chart a fresh direction you
are going to have to grab the steering wheel and give it a hard, gut-wrenching
yank to the right.
And so it
is with your thoughts and actions. Repeating them a few times all but
insures you will comfortably repeat them indefinitely unless you take
deliberate - possibly disruptive – action to do otherwise.
Here are
seven rut busters I use with my business coaching clients that you can
apply immediately to get yourself and your business out of a rut.
1. Shift
your mindset from self to customer
Most business
people think of themselves first. They craft product and service offers
from their own perspective and consider themselves the beneficiaries of
their actions. While that's not wrong, to get out of your rut do this:
put yourself into the mind of your customer. Who are these people anyway?
What are they concerned about? What are they trying to accomplish? If
you were your customer, what would you think of that new product, marketing
campaign, or mail piece? Are you selling your wonderful 'stuff', or are
you providing them tangible, meaningful benefits. Ask, 'If I were the
customer, would I care?' And if not, consider, 'What WOULD I get excited
about?'
2. Shift
your mindset from customer to client
A customer
is someone who buys your goods or services. The original meaning of client
is entirely different: someone who is under your care and protection.
Now that's a switch, isn't it? If they're customers, your goal is to get
them to buy something. But if you were to think of them as under your
care – would you approach your business from another angle? How
would you take care of them? How would you 'protect' them? What new programs
would you want to implement immediately?
3. Revisit
your vision
Whenever
I feel like I'm in a rut I return to my vision and I do two things. First,
I make sure it still inspires me and that it is pointing me in the direction
I want to go. Once sure, I put pen to paper and rewrite it. Not just once,
but over and over. And I keep writing until I can't write it anymore because
I'm jumping up and down with a new idea I must do something about right
away.
4. Conduct
a Survey
If you don't
know what to do next, ask your clients. (They are clients, aren't they?)
Conduct a survey about anything that interests you. Ask them what's bothering
them. Ask them what they're stuck on. Ask them what they like about your
company and what they'd like you to do next. Ask them about new features,
or new products, or new services. If you're not happy with your current
customers, conduct a survey among the kind of people you'd like to have
as customers.
And, if
you can't do that, conduct a survey online. Write an attractive search
engine ad, promise something of value, and drive people to a survey page.
Ask them anything you like - the answers will almost always provide you
with a neat mind- shift.
5. Focus
on building your strengths and dump your weaknesses
From the
time we are little children we are taught to better ourselves by working
on our weaknesses. This is often both frustrating and fruitless, and certainly
not as much fun as practicing our strengths. Try this on: What if you
focused 100 percent of your energy on being world-class in those few things
at which you are already very good, and out-tasked or outsourced those
things at which you were mediocre. Imagine if you never had to face any
of those things again and could spend all your time doing the good stuff.
Would that change the way you felt about your business? Would that bust
you out of your rut?
6. Not if,
but how
Think of
that wild and crazy idea you had recently. The one where you said to yourself,
'That would be great, but there's just no way.' Well, I know there's no
way – you just said so – but if there was a way, what would
it be? Answer that question as if you believed it was possible –
probable even – and then get busy making it real. That's power,
you know – turning your vision into reality. Talk about a breakthrough!
7. What
are you willing to sacrifice?
Some important
things are more important than other important things, and trying to keep
all those plates spinning in the air saps your vigor for the ones that
truly matter. Dissipated energy – lethargy – is one of the
reasons we lie down in that rut in the first place, and dropping a few
of those plates can really help things break loose. So let go. Make the
sacrifice. Clear your plate and give up some of those precious things
you've been holding on to. Focus your vitality on plans which will really
rock your world.
Ruts? Who
needs 'em.
Paul Lemberg is the President of Quantum Growth Coaching, the world's
only business coaching franchise system. Paul is available for keynote
speeches and workshops and can be reached via http://paullemberg.com
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We hope you enjoyed
this issue of CorporateCoach. If you would like to learn more
about how we can work together, then please contact me, Richard Winfield:
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