Brain Breach

The fun part about business is the raw challenge of having to face SO many important decisions. It’s not that these are simply a sea of inch-deep and mile-wide decisions, but truly miles deep and wide. It’s like drilling for oil. Look at the decisions you have to make today: you can create a new product, you can re brand your old one, you can expand or change your target audience, you can hire at a low or high wage, you can school or buy books, you can buy books from well established authors or fringe insightful ones, you can get take funding from the big guy, go find a few small guys, or bring your product to market and self fund. I faced all those this month! There is seemingly no clear path. Ambiguity!

To illustrate, consider Microsoft and the Zune. You have to ask yourself, with the billions they spend in R&D, don’t you think some important decision makers in the Microsoft team thought “hmmm, we could make mp3 players much better”, even before the iPod? I am sure of it. However, they didn’t release their mp3 until 5 years AFTER the iPod.

The sea of ambiguity takes style, and intuition to navigate. Microsoft lives in the same world that Mac does, and with way more capital, but the didn’t display the clarity of mind. Maybe all their market research is hurting them! Steve Job’s isn’t big on market research for a reason. I don’t think he is any type of strategic genius, just a great sense of what he wants.

Interestingly, Warren Buffet dealt with ambiguity by lessening it. When living in New York he told reporters he had 100 ideas a day come across his desk, when he only wanted a good one every year. That’s why he moved back to his home town of Omaha. Not a bad system.

Look at so many large companies today that started of with such clarity. Some still have it, others don’t. Ford was maligned for doubling employer wages and cutting hours. That move shortly double Ford’s income. Though, they don’t seem to display that same clarity now don’t you think?

The Success Commandment prevails: Thrive in Ambiguity. Enjoy the sea of decisions miles deep and wide, and know what you want out of it. The folks that can’t will never be seen as powerful leaders.

Ray Kroc, founder of McDonald’s as we know it today, worked 30 years in restaurant supply sales before making his big move. He knew what worked with customers, and was known to give his clients such advice. Such valuable insights he gained from knowing his costumers over so many years. Along came an opportunity to make a restaurant his way, and out comes McDonald’s.

Charles Merrill had a bottom up philosophy, responding to the public’s lack of education about stock ownership, gave them free education through his advertising. Listening to his customers more deeply than anyone else in his market guided the sale of his service.

Cyrus McCormick, inventor of reaper, would tweak, change, and overhaul his product based on product exhibitions and feedback. 70% of America’s workforce was in farming before the reaper.

Maintaining a tight feedback loop allows the product to meet those needs which you can easily miss.

Notice the commandment doesn’t read “Your customer knows best”. They don’t always. Your customer knows best their problems. It’s your job to translate their problems into your product. If folks new what they wanted, they would be buying Ruben Studdard’s cd’s by now. America voted, right?

Too many times do we see business of high status distance themselves from their customer. Consider this: You have a killer idea for your LG phone. An idea that probably hasn’t been thought of, that would add value and simplicity. How many people would it have to go through before it ever reached the product manager’s desk, and in what condition?

Jun 08 Update :  Closely related to this article is the entry onVOC

Also, Cheers to Ohmar Amad of Commapping.com.  He stay’s tight to his customer base, and that’s rare.

Our unconscious self determines more about our success than researchers once thought. In this study researchers tested two groups of people. One group were fed success oriented words, while the other were fed neutral words before the task. One group did better.

These results… reveal an unconscious process that has both an advantage over conscious processing and an ability to serve a person’s current goals. Such unconscious processes may be responsible for far more of human ability than is yet recognized. Physorg

So I hereby declare a success commandment: Immerse Thyself into one’s dream. Think it, study it, play with it, be passionate about it.