Let’s not be fooled by fashion and tamed by reason…

“Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought” Albert Szent-Gyorgyi
Someone recently said to me “the more I read, the less I know”. Profound. In a world where technological advances were supposed to make life simpler, the reverse seems to reflect the truth.  The world is more complex, undefined, rushed. Decisions are taken without hesitation in the race to keep up with social channels and serendipity is increasingly a thing of the past, despite what we are repeatedly told. Serendipity requires time. The one thing we are very short of. And we seldom have a big idea anymore. Instead we have ‘notions; and a notion is but the teeniest of concepts.

The point is that big ideas add value to any business. Obvious. Yet many businesses regard ideas with suspicion. Real ideas have dimensions and are resilient and flexible. Outside of some connections, where ideas really spring from is unpredictable. The only thing for certain is, ideas don’t come when called! To get to them it is necessary to clear the mind. This requires a step away from technology and to look up and around, be curious and open minded. The opposite then, of the behaviour of most businesses. Try as they might, there is a fundamental problem with businesses trying to marry creativity and commerce! The trouble is for this to work, they have to lose the fear of making mistakes and this requires a step away from viewing situations in conventional terms and avoiding creating problems that don’t actually exist. This is a dynamic system we are dealing with and it poses some interesting questions.

2014 promises to be the year of wearable tech. CES in Vegas will show a smorgasbord of new and innovative ideas and the promise of the ultimate connected life for consumers. But does this mean that businesses will become more dependant on data driven decisions? Will there be a rush to keep up and grab the upward line of the adoption curve? And will this add to the burden and confusion? The trouble with data and technology is that they doesn’t allow for ambiguity – the very nature of human beings. Data has its value of course, but we must not become complacent and rely on it. Instead at Borkowski.do we are sticking our necks out and recommending the reverse.

A goodbye to allowing the data to decide and a warm welcome back to reflection, intuition and judgment!

After all, reflection, is key to producing quality decisions and the foundation block to build strong leaders.

But the speed of disruption is so intense, it is stripping away all confidence.

Let’s look up from the technology and proliferation of ‘information’ for a moment. Great leaps forward come from asking the right ‘big’ questions. That’s why we should start our thinking with NOT knowing any answers! Competitive companies will be those that offer products and services minutely shaped by the unique ideas and perspectives of every single one of their customers.  Companies that fail to grasp this new reality will ultimately be squeezed out of markets by those that do.

Experience, though of great value, all too often fails to change the world. We must embrace the great unknown, listen, reflect and fashion solutions that are unique. Let’s not be fooled by fashion, tamed by reason or trapped by experience, but work with clear and open mindedness.
That means celebrating people and ideas from wherever they come, rather than seeing things entirely from our own perspective, and developing a unique and clear point of difference.

Welcome to 2014. The Now Economy requires us to sit still, demand more time to think, reflect and innovate, to avoid making the same mistakes of the past few years.