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Organizations usually fail to perceive the potential of the most important new information, technology, and ways of operating. This occurs because the new piece of information or resource unexpectedly makes untrue what has been true in the past. This chapter focuses on your opportunity to seize advantages by appreciating the implications of critical new areas you know about today but are incorrectly discounting as unimportant to your future Disbelief:
Limited Imagination and Blind Spots The disbelief stall
is based on a valid experience, lack of relevant experience, or a previously
established reality that no longer pertains. In the horse and buggy age, the
thought of going sixty miles an hour for extended periods of time was beyond
belief. Yet soon after the automobile was introduced at the turn of the century,
such speeds were attained in races. There is a strong
tendency in the business world to react with disbelief to any important change.
The most revolutionary changes meet with the most skepticism and are less likely
to succeed initially, in part because capital sources are conservative. The
bigger the idea, the more likely it will boggle the minds of those who are
needed to bring the idea to fruition. Consider this: One hundred years ago,
Alexander Graham Bell supposedly offered his ailing telephone business to the
then king of communications, Western Union, for $100,000. Western Union's boss
scoffed at the idea, disparaging Bell with the words, "What use could our
company make of an electrical toy?" The man's reaction
is not surprising. In the last century, technology grew slowly. And even today,
as we have seen, it is not easy to leap into the future with a novel idea that
challenges present methods. Thomas Kuhn, a Harvard-trained philosophic
scientist, uses the term "paradigm shift" to tell what must happen in
a person's mind-set before a novel development can be understood. We are forced
to fundamentally challenge the status quo before we can develop new ways of
looking at things. Why Would Anyone
Need a Phone? Bell wasn't really
thinking big initially; he wasn't moving to a totally new paradigm. He just
thought he had a way to improve on the town crier. He expected to use the phone
as a news medium. With each new technical advance, would-be users and, yes, even
the inventor (like Bell himself) may be stymied by clinging to the old ways.
They figure that the new knowledge will be employed in the same way the old
knowledge was. Later, people were
to react similarly to cell phones, asking, "Who needs it?" But when
people get cell phones, they begin by calling friends to enthuse. Then they make
far more calls than they expected as the usefulness of the device quickly
becomes obvious. Husbands often buy cell phones for their wives who are at risk
if the car suddenly breaks down at night. Forget minimum rates. New cell phone
customers often use the devices so much they rarely qualify for minimum-use
fees. Why Would Anyone
Need a Computer? The usefulness of
electronic computers, created during World War II, was suspect even to their
most avid supporter. Thomas J. Watson, Sr., who was to build IBM upon mainframe
computers, was quoted in 1943 as saying there was probably a world market for
only five of the monster machines. The early computers
were certainly formidable. These mainframes took up a major portion of an entire
city block. There were no desktop personal computers or other small units back
then. Processing with these lumbering giants was molasses slow relative to the
lightning speed of our desktop PCs today. Ignore It and It
Will Go Away Sometimes the
disbelief stall is colored by feelings about short-term self-interest. Suppose
someone walks into your office to offer you a variation on your primary product
that, due to new efficiencies of production, can sell for half the price your
product now commands. You are likely to be more shocked than pleased, unless, of
course, you anticipate that the dollar value of the market will grow much
larger. Failing that, the adoption of the outsider's product will probably cause
your profits to drop. You may bear the extra burden of replacing specialized
equipment and people. Who needs this? Your mind may play tricks on you. For
example, you decide the new product will, in fact, cost more to produce. The
disbelief stall is taking hold. You drag your feet, hoping you will be promoted
and someone else will have to decide. This stall is very destructive. The
business world is dynamic: He who hesitates is lost. Tunnel Vision
Darkens the Big Picture To a surprising
degree, managers, both those who know computers and those who do not, tend to
see them in terms of their existing, standard applications. Most managers can
easily understand the computer as an engine of personal productivity or as a
tracker of production. They could, for example, understand computers used to
prepare accounting. But many do not realize they can embed software on a chip in
their finished product to help improve service. Stall Erasers: Creative
People You should seek out
the help of people who enjoy creating new solutions. These types of people are
eager for new challenges. You may also find these helpful hands among suppliers,
new employees, customers, and outside experts, including academics. Their
imagination can be supplemented with your own good leadership. In the same way
that no two people have identical kinds of curiosity, organizations have
personalities that favor or disfavor various ways of looking for new solutions.
Likewise, you can easily imagine that Intel, Microsoft, IBM, General Electric,
and Disney would take quite different approaches to dealing with the same issue.
You should examine your organization's personality and consider how it can be
expanded in useful ways, perhaps by adding new partners and new competencies. Positive
Thinking Starts the Exponential Progress Engine To overcome the
disbelief stall, you need to have a positive outlook. You have to believe
wonderful things are just around the corner, if only you look for them. You have
heard the old debate about the glass being half empty or half full. People who
see a half-empty glass tend to see potential problems wherever they look, which
also encourages them to focus on avoiding loss. It makes more sense to imagine
potential opportunities. Ask yourself a positive question about any situation
that occurs. Imagine you were being asked to use a computer for the first time.
Instead of fighting this new responsibility, ask yourself how this would make it
easier for you to get home on time. It is also good to adopt other new beliefs
about what is going on around you, beliefs that help you grow and exploit more
and better opportunities, such as a belief that 2,000 percent solutions abound
for those who seek them. View roadblocks as
in disguise. For example, if you can find a way to solve an especially difficult
problem, realize that you are solving it for others in your organization. This
viewpoint can add to your ability to help your organization as well as your
customers: When you solve a recurring problem, you save time again and again. It is also helpful
to believe that all things that happen have a purpose: to help you improve.
Adopt the idea that large changes are fundamentally good and possible. If
something is unacceptable, remind yourself that there is probably at least one
way you can change it. Once you believe you can make a change, work on making it
a change for the better. If something happens to you that has not happened to
you before, ask yourself, "What am I supposed to learn from this?"
This upbeat way of looking at things makes life much more interesting,
especially when this point of view is applied to what first appears to be
temporary adversity. |
