All in Strategy
When things are going well, we naturally focus our time doubling down on the things that have made us successful. Our offering are resonating, so we focus on raising awareness, pitching to those who haven’t bought yet and investing on expanding our reach, so that we can sell more.
All of that makes sense – why wouldn’t we double down and capitalize on what’s working?
Taking risks is a challenging idea when it comes to implementation.
When the rubber meets the road, and we have the opportunity to actually do something, that’s when we find out whether or not we’re actually ready.
It’s tempting to think that the right resources will help us bridge the gap, or that having the right people around us will help, or even that our own personal (decades of) expertise will be enough.
Are we at an Inflection Point?
According to Investopedia, an Inflection Point is “an event that results in a significant change in the progress of a company, industry, sector, economy, or geopolitical situation and can be considered a turning point after which a dramatic change, with either positive or negative results, is expected to result.”
When the going’s good, it’s tempting to want more.
Our stock picks are at all time highs, so surely they’ll keep going higher…
Or sales are booming, and in that euphoria, it’s tempting to prioritize revenue growth over profitability or innovation.
Part of the reason I love the band, Radiohead, is that they have a complete disregard for conventional musical norms.
They’ve had numerous hit albums since the early Nineties but none of them have followed any sort of predictable pattern.
It’s easy to get caught up in the minutiae of our daily work.
Particularly, when you’re growing something - from a project to a business - there are any number of things that need to be taken care of, and every single one of them seems important.
When we’re deciding what’s important, we need to be thoughtful about the voices we’re listening to - specifically that they’re worth listening to.
Twitter is probably the most prominent example today. While there are about 450 million users on the platform, about 10% of that user base contributes 80% of the tweets.
Like it or not, mistakes are par for the course.
As much as we’d like a perfect innings, there really isn’t any such thing.
That’s a function of the variability inherent in our environment. Our colleagues will not always act predictably. Competitors don’t always behave the way we’d like them to.
Decades ago, in the early days of the PC, Steve Jobs observed that “most people didn’t want to learn how to use a computer; they just wanted to use it”.
That was his underlying philosophy with the Mac (and all (of his) subsequent Apple products): how do you make the product so simple, so intuitive, that the customer can simply use it without a learning curve? And you have to admit, it’s worked beautifully.
There’s a ton of debate these days about whether a recession is looming (or not), followed by just as much debate about whether we’re already in one.
Each side puts forward plenty of data and evidence to support their position - and if you listen to what they have to say, you can be convinced either way. So, who’s right? What’s the actual truth?
When we lose an opportunity (a sale, a promotion, a job offer, etc.), it’s normal - and OK - to feel down, especially if it was something we really wanted. After all, if we’ve really given it everything we had, we’ve made a commitment (emotional and otherwise) which, ultimately, has not been rewarded.
So, we take the lumps.
One of the most common conversations you’ll have, as someone who manages others, is the conversation about goal achievement.
That is, what will it take to achieve our goals? What needs to be in place for us to get there? It’s a good discussion (usually) that keeps all of us grounded on the practical steps that should be taken to enable us to get to where we want to go.
At some point, I think we all have to decide if we’re “For-Profit” or “For-Purpose”.
Yes, we can and should be about both, but one has to take precedence in defining who we are and what we’re doing.
To be “For-Profit” is to be focused on the numbers.
When Tom Cruise climbs out onto the Burj Khalifa or free solos up a cliff for a scene in one of his Mission Impossible movies, we love it.
When Jackie Chan does his own stunts in any of his action films, we’re enthralled.
I know it’s a cliché to say this but we learn far more from our mistakes than we do from our successes.
The reasons are obvious, of course. Through our mistakes, we gain practical experience in what not to do - and it’s this experience that generates knowledge that is seared into our subconscious, often painfully so.
From early on, we’re taught to be “good” at our work which typically translates to developing strong, technical expertise.
We’re required to learn the right processes, the tools to be deployed and the results to be achieved as a result of following that process.
If we do this well, we’re hailed as ‘process experts’ which, generally speaking, is a good thing.
At the end of the movie, Jurassic Park, the lead actors are in an enclosed space, surrounded by menacing velociraptors. It looks like their time is up, until suddenly, out of nowhere, a T-Rex suddenly appears and attacks the velociraptors, allowing our heroes to escape to safety.
That plot twist is called a Deus Ex Machina, which is Latin for God From The Machine…
Having our “fingers in multiple pies” seems like a good idea when we’re starting out.
Business environments are competitive, clients are demanding and surviving means doing whatever’s needed to make money.
Get funded!
If you float around social media long enough and follow certain cohorts or hashtags, you’d be forgiven for thinking that there are only a few paths to entrepreneurial success - and even fewer paths that are ”right”.
In particular, the pressure is to get funded - or at least that’s the option that provides (is given) the most ’social’ credibility.
