‘The task is not to come up with better results, but to ask better questions.’
This is so true it has become a cliché.
The challenge is to find and ask those better questions.
Following are 12 ideas that may assist the thought processes you undertake to produce superior strategic outcomes required for sustained success.
Life is not binary. Just because there seems to be a right solution to a problem, does not mean there is not another equally as good, just different solution. The opposite to good is not always bad, in life, and in business, it is just ‘another’.
Average is not representative. Take a whole bunch of data points and average them, and you have, what? Something that will not appeal to anyone. If I have one foot in the fire and the other in a bucket of ice water, on average, my feet are the right temperature. Look at the outliers, find the things that appeal to the few on the fringes, and sooner or later, many of them will become mainstream.
Logic leads to predictable. If all you do is rely on logic, black and white, removing the creativity and that ‘other solution’ you will be just like everyone else who is logical. It is good for those who do not want to undertake any risk, but not a road to success. Differentiate by not being predictable and logical. Competitively, you can often figure out your competitors next move by looking at the same logic they will be using, then do something different, guaranteed to stuff up their meek and mild, risk-free plans.
Expectations set the agenda. When something exceeds your expectations, you see it as a great experience. Therefore, if you keep your expectations low, you will end up having a great time, all the time. In negotiation, this is called ‘Anchoring’, and anchoring ‘high’ is always a good starting point, so long as it is not obviously an ambit claim.
Efficient and effective are not the same thing. You can be very efficient at doing something entirely ineffective. To be effective, the solution you deploy must have some sort of value not conveyed by alternative means.
Context is everything. We see things and situations within a context. Change the context and you change the perceptions of the ‘thing’. For example, there is a much repeated psychology experiment using beer. Respondents are asked ‘how much would a cold beer cost from the 5-star hotel a kilometre down the beach’? The question is repeated, but the beer is bought from a shack. The expected price for the beer from the 5-star hotel is double the expected price of the same cold beer bought from a beachfront shack. This is entirely the result of context, our subjective expectations based not on logic, which would say the beer should cost the same, but on the context in which it is purchased.
The scientific method is not the only way, or even the best way to create. The scientific method is the best way to continuously improve an existing process, but it is less effective at dreaming up a disruptive new process.
Accidents, the random events must be induced somehow, or no non-linear progress will occur. Fleming discovered penicillin by a random accident that he did not even fully recognise at the time. The light bulb was not the result of continuous improvement of the candle.
Encourage ‘bonkers’. We need permission to be bonkers. When you do something bonkers that does not work, your job is on the line, do something that is entirely rational that does not work, and you will be fine. Therefore, you must have a small part of your business that encourages bonkers to test the weird and wonderful which are the things out on the fringes that might one day become mainstream.
Consider the irrational. Creativity is not rational, and rarely obvious. Whenever you allow a model that is entirely rational to dictate what will happen, or what you should do, that model will leave out many things, that may on the surface be mathematically irrational, but which might fit better the behaviour patterns of irrational people than the elaborate mathematical models. Next time you see a model coming out of the finance department in Canberra that predicts an outcome, all you know about that the outcome for sure is that it will be wrong. We are not rational beings, but are motivated by all sorts of things, not just the fining or bribing that is usually the only incentives being considered in most economic situations.
Remember the butterfly effect. Tiny things can be compounded to make huge impacts. Look for the tiny, trivial things that may impact in unintended ways that have the potential to compound.
Be open minded. If there was a logical answer to the questions in front of you, somebody would already be doing it. If a problem is persistent, the chances are that the solutions that have been considered are the rational ones, the ones dreamt up in the halls of logical thinking. Instead, look widely at the problem, seeking to see the alternatives that do not come up in a rational, logical conversation about the solutions to the problem.
Ask dumb questions. There should be accolades for those asking questions that might seem stupid, often when someone asks that question, others in the room sigh in relief as they were thinking the same thing.
If you can bring yourself to do some, or all of these things, it will often feel as if you are out of your depth, like suddenly stepping off a sandbank out in the surf. When that happens, and you are suddenly uncomfortable, you may just be in the right spot to see things others will not.
Header: The header is a still of Pablo Picasso taken from the great ‘Think Different’ Apple ads.
a great reminder of things that seem so easily ignored or forgotten. Thanks Allen. I have always tried to apply the ‘bonkers’ model.
I have been accused of focussing on ‘Bonkers’