Category Archives: Thinking Aloud

March 18, 2015 · 11:59 am

I Suck At Art

What, you are wondering, compelled me to announce to the world I lack proficiency in art? Why am I telling you that I can’t draw? The self-portrait I painted in college (yes, I took an art class) looks like something a 5-year-old did while taking acid and flinging paint. I haven’t improved much over the years. But why am I telling you?

I’m telling you because you need to do the same thing. You need to think about your weaknesses. No, I don’t mean your inability to step away from the candy bowl. I mean the areas in business which are not your strengths. It’s a critical step to becoming a better business person and probably to being a better human being too.

Bad managers think they know it all.  They can read the data better than the person breaking it out.  They can write better than the chief copywriter and design better than an art director.  Their marketing campaigns are brilliant and they know everything there is to know about social media.  You might have worked for that guy.  The problem is that inevitably they miss something because they refuse to admit they have a blind spot in their skill set.  They don’t ask questions – they just give you answers.

Great managers know their weaknesses and hire accordingly.  Even those of us who are on our own need to do that.  Sure, I can build you a website but it will take me a long time and it won’t be as good as when I bring in someone who excels at it.  While I know what works from a user experience perspective in digital you don’t want me doing artwork to bring it to life.  This is why you hire someone like me (OK, hopefully me!)  in the first place – to work with you in areas where I’m more expert than you and to bring in resources that will compensate for the weaknesses in your business.

So I suck at art.  You may be Michelangelo but you probably suck at something else that’s important to your business.  What are you doing to patch that hole?

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March 13, 2015 · 10:46 am

Will It Blend

the cheeseburger burrito from California Tortilla

Cheeseburger burrito from California Tortilla

It’s Foodie Friday and this week I have trendiness on my mind.  I came across a report recently from the National Restaurant Association. The What’s Hot in 2015 survey was conducted in October 2014.  They surveyed 1,276 members of the American Culinary Federation. The chefs were given a list of 231 items and were asked to rate each item as a “hot trend,” “yesterday’s news” or “perennial favorite” on restaurant menus in 2015.  You can read the results here – consider it “coming attractions” for what you might find on a menu when you dine out this year.

I’m not sorry to say the biggest declining trend (#1 in “yesterday’s news”) is the use of insects in dishes.  It appears that foams have run their course as well. Locally sourced ingredients – meat, seafood and vegetables – is the top trend.  How they’re used is a different matter and the winner there as a general trend is ethnic fusion.  These dishes are mash-ups from different cultures resulting in things such as a cheeseburger burrito or a poutine taco.  Since we live in a country of many cultures, this isn’t surprising.  But it is instructive well beyond food.

Great ideas are all around us.  Maybe they’re buried in the ways a competitor does business.  Maybe it’s something in an unrelated field (kind of like how we look at what food tells us about business each Friday).  We need to be looking constantly for sources of inspiration.  Mark Turner, in his book The Origin of Ideas: Blending, Creativity, and the Human Spark, says that “humans are innovative and good at creative thinking due to the ability of our brains to blend two or more ideas and create a new idea.”  While we can argue about how great an idea topping Kung Pao Chicken with crumbled goat cheese might be, the important thing is that as business people we need to avoid the Not Invented Here thinking and look everywhere for inspiration.

I read a quote that “anyone can combine hoisin sauce with chutney and put it over pasta, but the end result has to taste good.”  That’s a great point.  Not every piece of fusion business thinking is great just as not every blending of ethnic foods quite works (Curried goat ceviche?  Nah…).  Thinking out of the box and trying to combine good ideas into great ones is the point.  If they blend, it just might be magic.

 

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March 5, 2015 · 12:09 pm

Stopping By The Woods

I woke up this morning to yet another snowfall. Yesterday’s rain and melting have iced over and are now covered with a few inches of fluffy stuff. I’m very much over winter as I suspect most of you are.

English: Looking down a rural dirt road after ...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

While I was out shoveling I couldn’t help but notice the silence.

Despite my hatred of snowfall, it really was beautiful and of course brought to mind the Robert Frost poem “Stopping By The Woods On A Snowy Evening.” I suspect you’ve read it – it’s a staple of high school English classes – but maybe you didn’t consider it as a business lesson.

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sounds the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Simple on the surface – it’s a guy in a sleigh taking a break – but full of other meanings.  The main one is the meaning of the woods. What the heck are they and why is the narrator conflicted between an attraction toward the woods and the pull of responsibility outside of the woods?  The woods are mysterious and seductive and maybe dangerous.  If you go into them and get lost, you might die yet he is drawn to them. Why is he procrastinating in his journey?

It’s the last stanza that’s all about those of us in business.  The allure of the myriad distractions we face each day – new business opportunities, the next shiny object which lures us away from our core business – are to be acknowledged, but we have promises to keep.  We make them to our customers, our partners, our employees and our investors.  Yes, I’m aware that many consider this to be the tale of a man considering and rejecting suicide (I did teach English, after all).  That’s a lesson for us as well, albeit figuratively.  We can’t make irrevocable choices – lie down in the freezing woods.  We need to think with a broader perspective and not give in to the moment.

What’s striking in the end is how something so simple on the surface as this poem can be quite complex.  Sort of like business, don’t you think?

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