Coaching

It’s all about maintaining FOCUS and making PROGRESS.

Once a group in a company is moving along their Innovation Journey, the key variable to keep an eye on is: PROGRESS ! That requires constant attention to maintain clarity on your objective.It is so easy to be distracted from the purpose at hand or to spend too much time and energy on very important matters. It is a slippery slope into the everyday world of being busy. But not changing.

Your partners, suppliers and customers all require time and attention. That is not the issue, but everybody is always busy and those who demand most of your attention tend to get it. FOCUS ! is the key word here. Coaching is about having a person knowing in detail your goals and aspirations but who has the emotional detachment to the existing partners, suppliers and customers so you do not lose sight of the overall big picture.

I raise ‘Coaching’ as a topic as it occurs with nearly every single client in some form or other. Usually it amounts to nothing more than regular, almost informal, but always candid reflection of the progress we are making and the steps to correct and deviation from course.

Working with companies I have to curate a large amount of information. The key is to select information to prove your point. If no evidence can be found there are two possibilities (1) Your point of view is wrong (2) You didn’t look hard enough. Unfortunately (2) happens more often and there are many fine Research and Forecasting companies, especially in the technology area, that will produce ‘forecasts’. This information is used unwittingly by many as due diligence and submitted as evidence in their business case. It is unfortunate as if ALWAYS misses one key point, a prediction about the future needs a probability to make it useful. Forecasts abound that the Smart Home market is facing huge growth e.g. Smart Home Market to Double by 2017 but missing is the probability this will happen. Is it 10% certain, or 90% ?

Entertain a tiny doubt of concern: Your point of view is maybe wrong or at least not 10% right and look to your reasoning. Why will a future market exist ? I am a passionate beliver in focusing on the proposition. Start there and be aware of all the other forces pulling you away from that  There are then good planning techniques to handle uncertainty we will look into later.

Contact me if you would like further details