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Thanksgiving is almost upon us.

And while I have much to be thankful for, both personally and professionally, I’m “thinking outside the turkey” and doing something different for this year’s Thanksgiving blog.

As business leaders, I believe it’s important that we expand our sources of information beyond the walls of our businesses and industries. This allows us to identify patterns and make connections that we might not otherwise see. I also believe it’s important to pause from time to time and ask “What if….?”

But sometimes it’s just as important to pause and have some fun. In fact, that’s a large part of what holidays are for. So this year, I’m serving up some “fun facts” that I have discovered in my personal quest for off-the-wall data sources. These come courtesy of “That’s A Fact Jack” and “Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader” — two of my favorite sources for random information.

Food plays a major role in this holiday, so I’m starting off with some fun food facts:

• The world’s oldest surviving recipe is a formula for making beer. It was discovered outside Baghdad in 1850 on a 3,800 year-old Sumerian clay tablet. Two other tablets contain what are believed to be drinking songs.
• 25% of all the vegetables consumed in the U.S. are French fries.
• 17% of all American restaurants are pizzerias.
• The busiest McDonald’s in the world sits in Pushkin Square in Moscow.
• Soda accounts for 25 percent of all the beverages consumed in the U.S.
• Starbucks spends more on employee health insurance than it does on coffee beans.
• There are more Subway sandwich shops in Manhattan than there are actual subway stations.
• It takes a Twinkie about 45 seconds to explode when cooked in a microwave.

Now, here are some people/lifestyle facts that say a lot about our current society:

• Twelve percent of American males have shaved while driving.
• A single day’s trash from New York City would fill the Empire State Building.
• The Bible is the most shoplifted book in the world.
• During their lifetime, the average person spends 5.5 weeks brushing their teeth.
• Eighty percent of American men say that if given the chance, they would marry the same woman again. Only 50 percent of women say they would marry the same man.
• More blond hair dye is sold in Dallas than any other city in the U.S.
• One in 10 Americans abstains from sex. Only one in 50 abstains from television.

And closing, here are some totally random but interesting facts:

• In Bangkok, there exists a 240-foot temple made entirely of broken dishes.
• Charlie Chaplin once lost a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest. (He didn’t even make the finals).
• In 1994, a man escaped from a West Virginia prison using a “rope” made of dental floss.
• During their lifetime, the average person sheds over 98 feet of eyelashes.
• Washington D.C. has more psychiatrists per capita than any other city in the U.S.

I hope you enjoyed these and they take your brain in some new and interesting directions when you share them over your holiday dinner table. Happy Thanksgiving!

Are you finding it harder to stay focused at work these days?

Welcome to the club! It’s been estimated that distractions and interruptions steal up to two hours per day of productive time for the average worker. And as new technologies make the world increasingly interconnected, it looks like it will only get worse – if we let it.

What’s stealing our time and attention away from the activities that matter most?

The usual stuff: phone calls, voice mail, email, Facebook, Twitter, instant messaging, Blackberries, interruptions from co-workers. We’re all familiar with these. But there’s a subtler and even more pervasive time-stealer in the workplace — our own thoughts.

The fact is, our own mental distractions drain huge amounts of creative energy. They keep us entranced and prevent us from tapping into our creative resources. When some of our attention is occupied by the past or future, we prevent ourselves from focusing on the present. When we’re distracted and mentally agonizing over the next thing that pops up on our lists, any chance of meaningful innovation goes right out the window.

What keeps us distracted? See if you recognize these common innovation dousers:

• Single thought. Relying on a single idea or plan to see your project through.
• Getting really worried. Worry is misdirected creative energy. Anxiety makes the creative flame burn in all the wrong places.
• Not having fun. When you stop having fun, the task becomes burdensome.
• Getting easily frustrated. The harder you work at being frustrated, the better you’ll get at it.
• Exaggerated importance. Making your challenge so important or all-consuming that you allow it to ruin the rest of your life.
• Knowing the right answers. You’re so convinced that you have all the answers that you stop entertaining or looking for alternatives.
• Running it through a committee. Nothing destroys individual initiative like a committee. Relying on a committee often denies personal responsibility, which eliminates the thrill of taking the risk. Having too many meetings to “discuss it” (which really means “listening to individual agendas”) wastes time and doubles the cost.
• Setting inappropriate deadlines. Make them too short and the task becomes impossible. Too long, and you lose interest in the project.

Relax and refocus

Fortunately, reclaiming your mental focus doesn’t require major surgery. Simply relax your muscles and concentrate on your breathing to center your attention. Then take a piece of paper and, as quickly as you can, write down any issues that come to mind. It doesn’t matter how pressing or trivial the concern. If it comes to mind, write it down.

Keep writing until you have nothing more to write. When you’re done, step back, look at your list, and acknowledge that you will deal with each concern at the appropriate time. This undermines the power of those issues to distract you, and makes it possible to give your full attention to the activity at hand.

Another great approach to dealing with distractions is to get clear on what inspires your innovative side. Identify what keeps you really focused and intensely determined, and build more of this into your day. For example:

• Necessity. Nothing sharpens the attention better than demands.
• Fun. Having a great time makes the juices flow.
• Boldness. Jumping right into a situation with both feet.
• Speed. Doing it as fast as you can.
• Shooting from the hip. Starting without a plan and applying ideas as they come to you.
• Taking risk. A real risk, without a safety net. Feeling the crisp bite of fear and dread, but going ahead with it anyway. The threat of failure lights a fire like no other!
• Pride. Taking pleasure in success and accomplishment.
• Time pressure. Feeling the rush of the deadline.
• Mental sparks. Feeling bold, standing out in the crowd, and getting noticed.
• Trust in last-minute inspiration. Having faith in your ability to pull the project out of the fire.
• Relaxing. Loosening your grip of life’s worries.
• Reflection. Having a private time and space to contemplate your navel.

The emails, Tweets and constant barrage of interruptions aren’t going away any time soon. And neither are our internal distractions. So identify the ones that hinder you the most and take appropriate action to defuse them. You’ll get a lot more done throughout the day. And you’ll be surprised at what your innovative side comes up with.

What do Velcro, barbed wire, and chainsaws have in common? They were all patterned after structures found in nature.

Velcro was invented in 1941 by Swiss engineer Georges de Mestral. After returning home from a hunting trip, he noticed a large amount of cockleburs stuck to his clothes and his dog’s fur. Out of curiosity, he stuck a few under a microscope and saw that each bur consisted of hundreds of little hooks that caught on anything with a loop, such as clothing or animal fur. He surmised that if he could duplicate the hooks and loops with other materials, he could bind them together in a similar fashion.

When ranchers first began raising cattle on the wide-open plains, they used the Osage orange as fencing material. But the thorny bush took a lot of time and effort to transplant and grow. Eventually, someone hit on the idea of fashioning wire fences patterned after the Osage’s sharp thorns. This innovation made it affordable to fence vast areas of land, and led to the practice of animal husbandry on a much larger scale.

Nature also provided the inspiration for the modern chainsaw. In 1946, a man chopping wood in Oregon noticed several timber beetle larvae chewing through the logs around him. A short while later, he developed a chain with interlocking links that mimicked the chewing action of their teeth. This led to the development of the first chainsaw that could cut with, or against, the grain of the wood.

These three innovative products have something else in common. They were developed using one of the most important parts of human intelligence — our ability to form patterns.

The human brain has an amazing capacity to take in large amounts of data, sift and analyze it, and then form patterns. In our caveman days, this kind of pattern recognition coupled with instant and consistent response was a good thing. It allowed us to quickly identify predators, remember the location of food and water sources, and engage in other activities that supported our survival.

Humans also excel at forming patterns and making connections because the subconscious mind likes closure. When faced with an incomplete picture, the brain works to complete the mental image by inferring the missing information. The brain works the same way on an unsolved problem or challenge; it loves to dive right in and get the job done. Our minds fill in shapes and patterns based on our expectations and assumptions.

Connections can be based on differences as well as similarities. For example, our minds easily connect chair and table, ham and eggs, brother and sister. To enhance your ability to see patterns and make connections, start looking for them in everyday things:

• Junk mail. Scan your mail before you throw it out. What new trends do you see in advertising and marketing? What new products and values catch your eye? Let your junk mail accumulate for a month and take note of what you see when you pause and go through it.
• Popular music. What are the trends in music? Is it getting louder or softer? More intimate or more intimidating? Is it more culturally diverse? Have the instruments changed? Do radio stations play more or less variety than five years ago?
• Bookstores. Are there any consistent topics among best-sellers? What about magazine covers? What values does popular culture display? Why are they portrayed as such?
• TV shows. What are the trends in prime-time television? What kinds of characters are portrayed on family shows now? Why are there plenty of shows about doctors, lawyers, and police, and so few about scientists, politicians, and engineers?
• TV commercials. What products or services do you see advertised the most? Are there new production techniques, or are old ones being revived? What time of day are the best commercials on? The worst? Who is the intended audience for a particular commercial?

Original ideas come from recognizing new connections between familiar things and transforming them into something new. So the next time you see a pattern — whether it comes from a beetle grub chewing through a log, or the pile of junk mail sitting on your countertop — pause for a moment and ask yourself, “How can I relate this to something I already know well?” You’ll be amazed at what you can come up with!

Fashion and safety goggles.

You won’t see these words used very often in the same sentence. Unless you happen to be a $2 billion manufacturer of personal safety apparel. In which case, they go together quite nicely.

When I worked for the world’s most valuable brand, every year the chief marketing officer would fly to Paris to attend one of the major fashion shows. His goal was to pick up on all the different colors, styles, and looks on display. When I asked what those things had to do with our product, he replied, “It all depends on how you look at it.”

I often pondered and finally learned to adapt his approach. In today’s world, one of the best ways to foster innovation in our organizations is to pick up on trends in other spaces and apply them to our own. I sometimes call it looking at things with a ‘cold eye’. The less you know about something, the more likely you are to see new ideas.

For example, a few years ago I worked with a $2 billion personal protection company to help create their strategic plan. This company made safety goggles, respiratory masks, earplugs, and other safety products worn by individuals at work. Their goggles were strong and durable, but ugly as sin and uncomfortable to wear (think about those clear plastic, one size does not fit anyone goggles worn in many factories). Sales had recently gone flat, and management called me in to see if we could determine innovative new approaches and products in their markets.

This company had a long track record of success. Managers were very set in their ways. And they were certain they knew what their customers wanted. Clearly the time had come to think outside the goggles!

During the planning process I asked them to do two things: take a look at the fashion industry, and learn more about their customers. They agreed to both, although with a fair amount of skepticism, and began researching the fashion industry to come up with some ideas on how to improve their goggles.

In doing so, they found that the majority of people wearing safety goggles at work were women. More important, they found that their customers wanted more than just to protect their eyes. They also wanted to look good and feel comfortable while wearing the goggles.

Keep in mind that this was a stodgy, male-oriented company whose leaders had been in manufacturing forever. They knew how to build quality goggles to protect the eyes. But they never dreamed that something else might matter to their customers — until they asked.

To their credit, they took what they learned and embedded it into a new line of fashionable safety goggles. To their surprise, sales increased dramatically the following year.

Had this company looked only within their industry, they might have never discovered those unmet customer needs. By changing their perspective and looking for ideas in other places, those needs became obvious. And by looking at an industry that seemingly had no connection with theirs, they came up with several good ideas for improving their products and adding more value to their customers.

The moral of this story is two-fold. One, never (and I mean never!) assume that we know everything about our customers or deeply understand them just because we have been successful selling them the same thing for decades. And two, as our world grows ever more complex and interconnected, we need to develop the habit of looking at new sources of information to prompt our own brains to consider innovative possibilities. Specifically, we need to:

• Broaden the scope of where we look for ideas, information, and opportunities
• Let go of old “truths” and see the world from a fresh perspective
• Learn to see patterns where others don’t (or at least spot them before anyone else does)
• Find ways to take what others are already doing (in seemingly disparate sectors) and adapt it to our way of doing business

No problem, right?

Actually it is a problem. Otherwise we would all be featured on the cover of Time Magazine as the next Steve Jobs. The former head of Apple was certainly an innovative thinker in his own right. But what he did better than anyone else was to look at what already existed in the world and put things together in ways that no one else had considered. He also excelled at figuring out what customers wanted before they knew it themselves.

Jobs had an intuitive gift for seeing what others didn’t see. But this ability to “look outside the goggles” is a skill that all business leaders can (and should) learn. Stay tuned next week for some tools and techniques to help you develop this critical leadership skill.

I just returned from one of my longer road trips of the year, and it’s great to be home!

Believe it or not, I used to enjoy business travel. But now, with all the airport security, flight delays, baggage fees, and surly attitudes of airline employees, it has become the least favorite part of what I do for a living. I still love working with different clients around the country. But the ‘getting there’ has become a wearisome task I would gladly eliminate if I could.

I did, however, have a real eye-opener on this latest trip.

I always caution my clients about the importance of not falling victim to our thought bubbles (the unspoken attitudes, assumptions and beliefs that govern how we think and act in the world). While sitting in yet another airport waiting for my flight to board, I experienced a vivid reminder of just how powerful they can be.

One of my pet peeves with air travel has always been how long it takes to board the airplane. Apparently I’m not alone, because while reading The Week magazine I came across an article about an astrophysicist who thinks he’s devised a better way. In fact, he believes his method, which he has tested using computer modeling and real people, would cut boarding times in half.

His approach goes like this: first seat families and anyone else needing assistance. Then, instead of seating groups of passengers from back to front as airlines currently do, fill all the window seats first. Start at the back of the plane and move forward by odd or even rows (30A, 28A, 26A, etc.) – but only on one side of the plane. When that side is full, repeat this process on the other side. When all the window seats are filled, use the same pattern to fill the middle seats and then the aisles.

The astrophysicist calculates that his method could save airlines hundreds of millions of dollars per year, not to mention a bushel of time for passengers. But so far he hasn’t heard from a single airline.

Here’s where the thought bubbles come in.

You might think that my initial response would have been, “What a great idea!” Or that I would have rushed up to the counter and asked the airline employees to give it a try. But no. The first thought that came into my head was one that has been repeated countless times in corporate boardrooms around the world: that will never work!

And then, to reinforce my not-so-original thought, my brain immediately began filling in all the reasons why it wouldn’t work. The airlines would have to retrain employees and change all their procedures. Passengers would have to show up on time and have their boarding passes ready. Frequent flyers would have to give up their priority boarding positions. Everyone would have to pay close attention to which seat was boarding at what time. People will never change their behavior in airports. That’s just the way it is.

You might also think that as the reigning “guru of thought bubbles” I would have immediately caught myself and said, “Holly, you silly! Stop indulging in your thought bubbles. You know better than that!” Instead, when my brain ran out of thought bubbles about why the idea wouldn’t work, I merely turned the page of the magazine and moved on to the next article. And sat there waiting while the plane boarded very slowly.

It wasn’t until I got home several hours later and mentioned it to my husband that the lights came on. Here was an idea that could potentially save millions of dollars while streamlining a major time-wasting activity. Yet I rejected it out of hand based on unproven assumptions bubbling up from my subconscious.

I don’t know if this idea will work or not. After all, it would require major behavioral change on the part of the airlines and passengers. But 9/11 sure changed our behavior in terms of the security measures we’re willing to put up with. And so far we have no hard data that this boarding method won’t work. So who knows?

The real issue for business leaders is how many times in our companies do we kill a good idea or overlook a potential opportunity because “it will never work”? And that’s the real danger of thought bubbles. When we’re buying into ours (because they reinforce what we want to believe), someone else might be challenging theirs and looking at things very differently. And that someone could be the next competitor that puts us out of business.

United, Delta, American, Southwest – there’s a guy out there who doesn’t buy into the thought bubble that we can’t board your airplanes more efficiently. Are you listening?

I would love to see the following sign outside every strategic planning conference room:

Strategic Planning Session in Progress

No Thought Bubbles Allowed!

Of course, it will never happen because we can’t get rid of our thought bubbles. What we can do is take a careful inventory of them and update those that no longer align with current market conditions. That way, our thought bubbles won’t derail our strategic planning processes by causing us to make decisions that have no foundation in reality.

Thought bubbles are the deeply held beliefs and assumptions we have about every aspect of ourselves, others, our organizations, and our lives. Operating just below the conscious level, they determine how and what we perceive, and guide how we think and act.

Thought bubbles tend to be self-reinforcing. They are always incomplete. They can limit our ability to achieve results. And they require constant updating to remain current.

During strategic planning, thought bubbles typically manifest themselves through hidden biases that affect how we analyze data and make (or don’t make) important decisions. Here are some examples of common strategic planning biases and the thought bubbles that might accompany them:

Bias: Status quo comfort.

Description: The tendency for people to like things to stay relatively the same.

Thought bubble: “We’ve always set goals at 5% higher than last year. Why should we change now?”

Bias: The bandwagon effect.

Description: The tendency to do or believe things because others do the same.

Thought bubble: “Nobody else in our industry is doing that. Why should we?”

Bias: Hindsight bias.

Description: The inclination to see past events as being predictable.

Thought bubble: “I knew that was going to happen! Why didn’t anyone listen?”

Bias: Information bias.

Description: The tendency to seek information even when it can’t affect action.

Thought bubble: “We can’t make a decision now, we need more data!”

Bias: Projection bias.

Description: Unconsciously assuming that others share the same or similar thoughts, beliefs, values, or positions.

Thought bubble: “I’m glad everyone’s with me on this one” (without checking for validation).

I could list dozens more. But the real issue is not just identifying our thought bubbles. It’s what we do with them.

For many, the biggest challenge with thought bubbles is simply becoming aware of them. Here’s the #1 clue: if an issue triggers an instantaneous emotional reaction, you’re in the grips of a thought bubble. And the more intense the emotion, the more powerful the thought bubble and the stronger your belief in its validity.

Other ways to recognize when thought bubbles come bubbling to the surface include:

• Any time you find yourself saying “clearly…, it’s obvious….”
• Getting defensive when people challenge you
• Feeling threatened by a statement, idea, or issue
• Feeling like others are stupid for having a different point of view
• Refusing to even consider an idea because “you know it isn’t true”

One of the most common thought bubble signals is using the word “but.” As in, “That’s a good idea, but…..” As soon as you say “but,” it negates everything that came before it. Your “but” thoughts shut down your brain from processing other possibilities while it works to validate whatever opinion or belief you currently have. It also puts the other person on the defensive and shuts down the conversation rather than opening the issue up for exploration. So one of the first rules in thought bubble bursting is to eliminate your “but”.

To avoid letting other thought bubbles dominate your decision-making, become more aware of how you react to issues. Any time you have a strong, instantaneous emotional reaction, pause and ask yourself:

• Why am I reacting so strongly to this issue?
• What is my underlying assumption or belief that is being challenged?
• Is this assumption or belief still true?
• Is it time for me to update my bubble?
• What do I stand to lose by having this assumption challenged?

When we pause to examine a thought bubble, we can use our brain to layer logic on top of the emotion. We can recognize the thought bubble as an unspoken assumption and seek new data to test it for validity. The problem is we don’t take the time to pause because we’re running so fast from the time we wake up until we put our head on the pillow at night.

We can’t get rid of our thought bubbles; that’s just the way the human brain works and they are important to us in many very positive ways. We can periodically stop responding to them in knee-jerk fashion by becoming aware of when they occur, pausing to check our reaction, and then responding in a more rational manner.

Monitor your emotional responses, eliminate your “but,” and you’ll start making much better decisions during your next strategic planning meeting!

Bias is defined as “prejudice in favor of or against one thing, person, or group compared with another, usually in a way considered to be unfair.” In the business world, this definition also applies to concepts and ideas.

As business leaders we like to think we’re impartial, open-minded and objective in regards to new ideas, but the human brain doesn’t work that way. Our brain has a strong bias for information that supports our existing view of the world. It actively seeks out data that supports our viewpoint, and often ignores evidence that contradicts it.

Bias is a leading contributor to poor business decisions, especially during the strategic planning process. Which is why I constantly urge business leaders to make it a habit to identify their assumptions, biases, and beliefs and test them against current reality before making any major decisions. Now there’s further evidence supporting the value of this approach.

A survey by McKinsey Consulting asked executives to rate the outcome of a recent strategic decision at their companies as either satisfactory or unsatisfactory, while focusing on the role that various biases may have played. The survey found that satisfactory outcomes are associated with less bias, thanks to “robust debate, an objective assessment of facts, and a realistic assessment of corporate capabilities.”

According to the survey, companies that produced positive outcomes did a better job of forecasting consumer demand and competitor reaction. They did a better job of assessing their own abilities to implement the decision. And they were also more likely to engage in certain activities that minimize bad decision-making. These include:

• Actively seeking out contrary data to ensure that key decision makers had all the information they need to make the best decision
• Allowing people with conflicting points of view to openly express their opinions
• Thoroughly reviewing the business case for the decision, even when senior executives strongly supported the decision
• Establishing processes and lines of communication to ensure that truly innovative ideas reach the senior management level

These kinds of behaviors seem counterintuitive. Partly because they contradict the unspoken biases and assumptions that tell us we already know what we need to know. And partly because they lengthen the planning process.

It takes time to gather and analyze information, especially data that we don’t want to see or hear. It takes time to listen to everyone’s point of view, especially those that would seem to be nay-sayers. And when senior managers are chomping at the bit to make the decision and move on, it takes time (and courage) to stand up and say, “I think we need to look at this some more or in a new way.”

In today’s world, we’re all running so fast that pausing to engage in these kinds of processes feels like we’re falling behind. But if we don’t take the time to evaluate how we gather information and how we reach conclusions based on that information, we end up making decisions that can have disastrous consequences. And this is the process I call “slowing down in order to go fast.”

Slowing down to go fast starts with actively seeking out information from a variety of sources. Pay attention to trends and events outside your industry. Then look for ways to apply that information to improve internal systems and processes or to add value to customers in new and better ways.

In meetings, don’t just tolerate opposing points of view, actively encourage them! Tell people, “This is the way I see it. Now I want to hear from those who see it differently.” Make it safe for people to express their opinions, even when they contradict the prevailing point of view.

The stronger you feel about an issue, the more likely it is that unspoken assumptions are driving your position. Expose your thinking on the issue and have people push back.

How did you reach that conclusion? What about the data leads you to believe that? Have you looked at it from this angle? Even when everyone seems to be in agreement, pause and ask, “Are we missing something here? Is there another answer to this problem? Is there a better answer or set of answers we should consider?”

The next time you undertake the strategic planning process, slow down in order to go fast. And remember to check your biases at the door or at least expose them to everyone!

It’s that time of year again. And, no, I’m not referring to Christmas shopping. It’s only September, for gosh sake!

I’m talking about strategic planning.

This is the time of year to pause for a bit longer than usual and think and about what winning will look like next year. It’s when we peer into the future to determine where our organizations need to go and what we need to do to get there in the upcoming calendar year. It’s when we identify our top three to five strategic objectives, lay out the specific action steps needed to achieve them, and determine a realistic timeframe for reaching our destinations.

For most companies, conducting a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities & threats) analysis is an integral part of the strategic planning process. And it can be very helpful because an accurate identification of SWOTs plays an important role in determining subsequent steps in the planning process.

For those not familiar with SWOT, strengths are those areas where we excel that are not easily copied by others. Weaknesses are the risks or limitations that get in our way. Opportunities represent possibilities that we can capitalize on or leverage. And threats consist of things in the external environment that give us cause for concern. For example, what are our current competitors likely to do, and where might unexpected competitors come from?

When used properly, SWOT is a powerful planning tool. Unfortunately, many companies misuse it by getting stuck in old patterns of thinking about problems and threats rather then looking ahead to where the company needs to go and focusing on winning.

A primary goal of strategic planning is figuring out what you can do, not what you can’t. However, rather than looking for new and better ways to add value to their customers, many companies use the SWOT process to focus on blaming competitors, the economy, or other external factors for things they can’t control. As a result, they end up spinning their wheels rather than gaining any real traction to move the company toward its destination.

The key to using SWOT effectively is not just identifying your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. It’s asking the right questions and using the information that gets uncovered in an appropriate manner.

For example, when considering your organizational strengths, ask questions like:

• Where have we really been able to excel?
• Is there something we have that we don’t use/do enough?
• Is there something we can develop quickly that we can leverage?
• What do others consider our greatest strength?

When considering weaknesses:

• What has gotten in our way in the past?
• How do we get in our own way?
• What processes do we have for identifying weaknesses in the organization, and how well do these processes work?
• What processes do we have for addressing these deficiencies, and how well do these processes work?

When identifying possible opportunities:

• Is there a product, a customer relationship, or a market presence that we can better leverage?
• Is there something we would pursue if we had more resources (people, dollars, time, etc.)?
• What are our competitors most worried we will do? Should we?
• What signals are critical to assessing our relationships with our market and customers?

When considering threats:

• What are we most concerned about?
• Are their new or different competitors likely to emerge?
• Is there a potential supply problem?
• Do we have good relationships with employees, vendors and customers?

It also pays to analyze and review how you conduct the SWOT process itself. Not just after the fact, but as you’re engaged in the process. For example:

• What proportions of our organization’s resources go towards maintaining and enhancing the status quo?
• How much time do we spend leading and nurturing new directions?
• What new efforts have we started in the past year? What efforts have we stopped?
• Is our long-term thinking focused on the few critical things that matter? Are we vigilantly avoiding the many possible diversions?

Becoming a leader in today’s chaotic markets requires fast, flexible, and highly adaptable organizations. Ones that anticipate and plan for change rather than react to it after the fact.

A SWOT analysis can help you achieve this strategic agility, but only if you use the information to break away from old patterns of thinking and make strategic decisions based on where you’re going rather than where you’ve been.

Next year will get here before we know it. What are you waiting for?

Seems like everyone is talking about innovation these days.

Most of the discussion centers on the need to add value to customers through innovative products and services. But according to Gary Hamel, a leading expert on business strategy, there’s more to innovation than just bringing new products to market.

In a recent Harvard Business Review article entitled, “The Management 2.0 Challenge: How Will YOU Reinvent Management in Your Organization?” Hamel identifies five different levels of innovation, including (from least to most important):

• Operational. Improvements in areas like supply chains or customer support systems.
• Product. Bringing new products and services to market.
• Strategy. Reshaping business models by reinventing how value gets delivered to customers.
• Ecosystem. Revolutionizing entire industries. For example, digital downloads have changed the entire music industry.
• Management. Reinventing the way we manage ourselves and our companies.

In his article, Hamel addresses management innovation primarily from a structural standpoint. He recommends eliminating the traditional management hierarchy and moving to small, flexible teams that allow people to come together around ideas they are passionate about.

I agree that today’s markets require nimble organizational structures that allow people to respond quickly to sudden market changes. I also think we need to address the process side of management as well. Specifically, we need to reinvent how we gather and analyze information, how we make decisions, and how we think about our customers, our markets and the world in general.

What do we need to do differently?

Stop looking only at information that aligns with your view of the world.

Typically, management looks primarily at industry information. Who are our competitors? What are they doing that we need to pay attention to? What changes are happening in our industry? But in today’s world, the competitor that puts us out of business often comes from outside our industry.

Make it a habit to seek out information beyond your normal boundaries. Subscribe to one or two magazines that have nothing to do with your business or industry. Visit web sites and watch news programs with different political views than yours. One of my favorite web sites is www.ted.com, which contains short video clips from thought leaders in a wide variety of unrelated areas.

In addition, constantly review how you seek out new data. Ask: What sources of information beyond the walls of our industry do we regularly scan? Who is looking at these sources and how often? What are we learning from this outside information? How is this information disseminated to others in the organization?

Review your decision-making processes in real time.

Don’t wait until after making a major decision or launching a new product to analyze your decision-making progress. Instead, review decisions in real time by making your thinking processes visible to others.

Before making a major decision, expose your thinking process and invite others to expose their thinking as well. “Here’s what I’m thinking about this issue and here’s why. Does anyone see it differently?” When everyone identifies the assumptions behind their thinking, you’ll be amazed at how people can see the same data and come up with very different conclusions.

Review the team process for reaching the decision. Ask: Did we thoroughly consider the issue or did we rush to consensus? Did the CEO or team leader unduly influence the decision? Were alternative points of view encouraged or shut down? Is there more than one “right” answer to this problem? What have we overlooked in our discussion?

Constantly challenge your thought bubbles.

Thought bubbles are the unconscious assumptions we make about our customers, our industry, and the world at large. We know them to be true because “they’ve always been that way” or “it’s obvious.” The problem is most of our assumptions stopped “being that way” a long time ago. Unless we examine them on a regular basis, we end up making key strategic decisions based on a world that may no longer exist.

Ask: What has changed with our customers, our markets, and our industry within the past six months to a year? What assumptions are we continuing to make simply because we “know them to be true”? When was the last time we did something in this organization that went completely against the status quo?

To overcome the brain’s natural tendency to see only what we expect to see, have a “non-expert” research your fundamental truths. For example, have your CFO look at customer data. Have your sales manager look at purchasing practices. Or have your marketing VP look at operations.

Today’s world moves unbelievably fast. To gain a sustainable competitive advantage, leaders need to become more self-aware of what we do and how we do it — and then continually improve that process.

Are you up to the challenge?

Still think Twitter is a silly fad?

A month ago, I posted a blog that included a negative comment about the new Chevy Volt and our cash-strapped government’s plan to support the vehicle through incentives and outright purchases.

The very next day, the Volt product manager tweeted me to ask if I would give him an opportunity to change my opinion of the car. He offered to deliver a new Volt to my front door for a free weeklong test drive. All he asked was that I keep an open mind and give the car a fair shot. I agreed, and soon found myself behind the wheel of a new Volt.

We’ll get to my opinion of the car in a minute. The bigger issue here is how Twitter has rapidly become a powerful tool for monitoring and managing public conversations about our products and services.

We can’t control what people think and say about our products and services. But we can influence them by following social media conversations and, when appropriate, becoming a part of them. Prior to our exchange of tweets, the Volt product manager and I did not know each other. Someone retweeted my blog to him, and he saw an opportunity to join in the conversation about his product.

If you’re not using Twitter and other social media to monitor what people are saying about your company and your products, you risk losing control of your brand. I applaud the Volt product manager for his quick and tactful use of social media in response to a very public negative message.

Now, back to the Chevy Volt.

Overall, it’s not a bad car. It looks good and drives well. It offers smooth handling and a quiet ride, and includes many of the latest features like a touch screen, keyless entry, Bose speakers, etc.

The Volt only goes up to 40 miles on a full charge, which requires leaving it plugged in overnight. After the charge is depleted, the gas motor kicks in to create electricity, which will take you another 250 to 300 miles. Since the gas engine does not directly power the car, the Volt can be classified as a 100% electric vehicle. It still uses gas, just (in theory) less of it.

Driving the Volt requires changing some habits. I forgot to plug the car in one night, and had no power other than gas to drive the next morning. You need to have a plug close to your driveway, which rules out parking on the street. And you have to trust that no one will mess with your plug – not necessarily true in some areas of town.

Despite all this, my issue is not so much with the car as with the thought bubbles (unspoken assumptions and beliefs) surrounding its development and production.

My home state (California) has rolling electricity brownouts during the summer. And last week we experienced an almost 100% black out for a day – no electricity at all. On a national level, the federal government has enacted hundreds of new regulations that are forcing many coal-fired electricity plants to shut down. About half of our electricity comes from burning coal, and we’re not building any new nuclear powered electric plants or dams, are we?

So I have to ask, why are we focusing on electric vehicles? What are the underlying assumptions and beliefs driving this push for electric vehicles (versus other fuel sources)? And why is our government so actively supporting this by purchasing large numbers of Volts?

At $40,000+ dollars, the Volt is clearly designed for high-end customers who want to feel like they’re making a big difference for our planet. I have no problem with that. I’m generally pretty eco-friendly. But are people making decisions about the Volt (and other electric cars) based on real data or on their misinformed thought bubbles?

For example, the Volt comes with an “Eco Cooling” feature that saves electricity by gradually powering up the air conditioning on a hot day. Instead of instantly cooling the car, you get to sweat through 10 minutes or so of sweltering heat until the AC fully cools the car. Is cooling down my car more slowly by a matter of a few minutes on a 90-degree day going to make a real difference to the environment? I have a hard time believing that. But I do get that someone might truly believe that is their contribution to a healthy planet – never mind whether it is accurate.

The people at Chevrolet were gracious and helpful. I just don’t think there’s enough change in this vehicle to make any real difference. And I really can find no reason to justify the cost. Coal fired and nuclear plants will take up more resources and produce more waste to generate the electricity necessary to run the car (it’s not like people are going to use less electricity on other things if they have an electric car). And I would love to have data on what to do with the lithium battery once it is used up, and how much waste is created in producing the vehicle, or how much energy is consumed…could not get my hands on that.

It’s easy to get swept up and want to move forward quickly on something that seems like a good idea. It has never been more critical to pause and really think through the details and the big picture…to consider consequences and the entire ecosystem of a challenge. I wish Chevy and our government were making real progress on alternative fuels rather than a sort of repackaging of the same old thing.

I will restate my blog comments though- the Volt itself is not an inferior vehicle. The concept sure is.

Now wish me luck while I tweet something critical about the new Ferrari and hope I get to drive one of those for a week!