Category Archives: Thinking Aloud

July 5, 2016 · 10:55 am

Living Your Life Loving Chaos

I heard someone discussing chaos theory the other day. Uncertain as to exactly what they were describing, my natural curiosity took over and I did a little poking around so I could understand the term a little better. What I learned is a great place to start the week and the second half of the year.

I suspect that most of you aren’t mathematicians. In fact, I’m pretty sure most of you didn’t go on to study advanced math much beyond high school (I sure didn’t and even remembering what I did study makes my head hurt). As it turns out, chaos theory is a branch of fractal math that describes business pretty well:

Chaos is the science of surprises, of the nonlinear and the unpredictable. It teaches us to expect the unexpected. While most traditional science deals with supposedly predictable phenomena like gravity, electricity, or chemical reactions, Chaos Theory deals with nonlinear things that are effectively impossible to predict or control.

Doesn’t that sound like the business lives we lead? The nice part of it is that within chaos there is order. Patterns emerge over time. Business is a series of interconnected, complex systems. When there are that many moving, independent pieces, predicting how each one will behave, or even how they MIGHT behave, is impossible. We can’t spend our time focused solely on predicting those behaviors. Our time is better spent in understanding where patterns come from and what they are as order emerges.

I think the most important line in the quote above for us as businesspeople is the last – things that are impossible to predict or control. We need to live our business lives embracing that uncertainty and not getting outraged when some unpredictable event intervenes. We can’t know everything although we can try to be prepared for anything. We need to embrace the chaos of business and to look for patterns. Those who will win will be the ones that find them first. You?

Leave a comment

Filed under Thinking Aloud

Tagged as , , , , , ,

June 24, 2016 · 12:13 pm

Take Me Away

It’s Foodie Friday and I have a little blast from the past today.  I’m a fan of the animated movie Ratatouille, the story of a rat who loves to cook.  If you’ve never seen it, take a few minutes this weekend and do so (as of this writing I see it’s available for streaming rental). The whole thing is pretty wonderful but there is one scene in particular which speaks loudly to me and I think has some business inspiration for us all. 

 

I’m going to risk spoiling the movie here but I need to explain the scene of which I’m thinking. It’s when France’s top restaurant critic Anton Ego, whose previous review cost the restaurant in which Remy, the rat, cooks one of its stars. Without spoiling it too much, Remy and the chefs cook Ego a dish of ratatouille which brings back an astonished Ego memories of his mother’s cooking. The graphic you see on the right is the moment when Ego takes a bite and that’s our business inspiration.

Every time a customer partakes of our product or service, we have the opportunity to make a positive emotional connection. I’m sure you’ve had the sensation of recalling a memory when you experience a particular smell or taste something. We see this all the time with, for example, scented candles. There is a difference between recognizing the smell of a pine tree and experiencing the feeling of being out in a snowy woods standing among them.  We’re trying for the latter because that emotional connection binds the consumer and the product. Actors use this all the time via affective memory or sense memory.

As with many things we discuss here on the screed, it’s not an easy task. The benefits are worth the effort, though. You can see it even in something as simple as the “Calgon, Take Me Away” campaign. Maybe we’re all in the transportation business?

Leave a comment

Filed under food, Thinking Aloud

Tagged as , , ,

June 23, 2016 · 10:44 am

Out Of Your Head

I’ve come to the conclusion that many, if not most, of our ills both in business and society are caused by not listening. It’s not that we’re deaf nor that we’re often failing to pay attention. The issue is that as we “listen” we’re focusing on our own thoughts and how we’re going to respond or react rather than on what it is the speaker is saying. That makes it difficult, if not impossible, to give fair consideration to the other speaker’s concerns.

This isn’t a brand new thought, I know. Maybe you’ve heard the term “emphatic listening.” Maybe you’ve heard it labeled “empathetic listening.” This is how Stephen Covey defined it:

When I say empathic listening, I mean listening with intent to understand. I mean seeking first to understand, to really understand. It’s an entirely different paradigm. Empathic (from empathy) listening gets inside another person’s frame of reference. You look out through it, you see the world the way they see the world, you understand their paradigm, you understand how they feel.

In other words, you need to get out of your head and into theirs.  You need to be quiet and listen.  REALLY listen. Don’t fidget with your phone nor check your computer screen. Give them your undivided attention and don’t judge as they are speaking. It’s also something that is way better if you’re face to face with them so you can read their body language. You ought not to respond immediately to whatever they’re saying as you THEN form your thoughts.  When you do, it’s often helpful to confirm that you’ve really heard them by playing back what they’ve said.

I can tell you from having tried to do this that many people are often quite rattled by it.  Most of us aren’t used to having someone get out of their own heads and listen. I think you’ll be surprised how the nature of conversations change as they become true dialogs.  Let me know, won’t you? I’m listening.

1 Comment

Filed under Helpful Hints, Reality checks, Thinking Aloud

Tagged as , , , ,