“I’m in favor of leaving the status quo the
way it is.”
Yogi Berra
“The world belongs to the
discontented.”
Oscar Wilde
I’ve Been Thinking. . . about
the challenge and conflict these two divergent points of view creates.
I’m reflecting on a first class
annual meeting I attended with a company who is a business partner. Reflecting on the dozen years of their
existence, Jeff displayed a power point slide that said, “If we had then what
we have now, think what we could have done.”
“True,” I thought to myself,
“But, just think what you would be (or not be) had you not capitalized on what
little you had.”
This successful company took
seriously their Anybody. . . Anywhere. . . Anytime. . . approach to serving their customers. Theirs was an unconventional strategy to
become best-in-class and a leader in their industry.
Doing what everyone else is
doing like everyone else is doing it might be comfortable but it’s certainly
not the fast track to setting yourself apart.
Famed investor Howard Marks pointed this out in his book entitled, The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful
Investor. Marks said,
“Unconventionality is required for superior investment results, especially in
asset allocation.”
Wow. Let’s modify that a bit to fit any business
scenario. Unconventionality is required
for superior performance. Marks
continued, “You can’t do the same things others do and expect to
outperform. Unconventionality shouldn’t
be a goal in itself, but rather a way of thinking.”
Unconventional attitudes and thinking
precede the potential for prolonged outstanding favorable outcomes. Conventional practices definitely have their
place. Striving for the proper mix of
conventional and unconventional behavior is a challenging recipe for success.
Inevitably, every leader has to
find a way to rise above the pull of operating status quo, and the predictable
misery that can result. Any team
proclaiming victory certainly emerged in some way from conventional thinking to
become discontented and curious to experience what else might be out there.
Their Wrestle
with Wreality prompted them to refocus. On what?
Write off all excuses for failure.
Wrap your arms around worthwhile awesome aspirations.Wrinkle the status quo by writing a fresh future.
Welcome a Wondrous focus on what ‘could be’.
Wholeheartedly embrace perpetual reinvention.
“WoW” is the new minimum standard.
Wreck contagious, complacent attitudes with a World class sense of urgency.
Widen the probabilities by opening the Window of possibilities.
Wittingly Wage War on anything that stymies that momentum.
Embrace a Woeful disregard for the Way it has always been done.
Passionately set the Wheels in motion to Widen your view of What could be.
If you want to produce
unconventional results, you must Wrestle With Wreality. Review the “W” list. Forget what it is. Think about what could be. Where do you need to start to make exciting
things happen in a new way?
Think what you could do with
what you have if your attitude about what you have was unconventional . . .
“The more successful a company, the flatter
its forgetting curve.”
Gary Hamel & C.K. Prahalad
What’s the deal with all the
“W’s”? Just call it unconventional.
