Tag Archives: change

Please understand me. I want you to

in Marketing, Psychology, Strategy

please understand me

I have a few friends who are looking for a job and have been for a awhile. They use digital means such as Linkedin, Simply Hired, Monster to find jobs as well as network with people. This process takes a lot of time, but the biggest problem is they still live with their parents; and the parents are fed up with it.

They’ve even told me their parents want to take their computers away because they think finding a job through the internet is dumb. They say they should job hunt the old fashioned way by going door to door. Say what?

It’s ironic because recruiters are changing their employee-hunting tactics to focus more on online:

Rather than sift through mounds of online applications, they are going out to hunt for candidates themselves. Many plan to scale back their use of online job boards, which they say generate mostly unqualified leads, and hunt for candidates with a particular expertise on places like LinkedIn Corp.’s professional networking site before they post an opening. As the market gets more competitive again, they are hiring recruiters with expertise in headhunting and networking, rather than those with experience processing paperwork.

I’m not saying the old fashioned way of job hunting is wrong, it’s just that parents fail to understand how the internet is changing how we do most things;  including job hunting. Why this disconnect?

Because of ignorance. They don’t take the time to step into our world and see what we see. This same principle applies to understanding the world of both our customers and employees.

Why is this important?

Step into their world

I recently argued that CEO’s should use social media because they need to get an intimate feel for the tools their customers and employees use to communicate instead of leaving it up to their lieutenants to figure it out. If they don’t experience these tools firsthand, they’ll never get the visceral experience of how these tools are really used in the front lines.

I don’t know about you but I like to experience things first hand and get an intuitive feel for them because it’s the only way I can understand how others might use, react, behave, etc.

Your customers want you to understand them

Point: The only way to understand what customers (our children) are thinking is to put ourselves in their shoes and step into their world. Look at the world from their eyes. We have to close the gap between their world and ours if we are to understand and help solve their problems in a better way.

How do you do that?

Easy.

Observe, notice, ask, listen, repeat.

 

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The first business bet you should make: everything changes

in Innovation

Everything changes in our world all the time. One of the most fundamental mistakes we humans make is to assume that everything is static, but in fact everything changes all the time. New winners emerge, new platforms emerge, new technological ideas emerge.

It’s easy to look outside your window and assume that the weather is the only noticeable thing that changes day in and day out. It’s not. Much like we take for granted that the Earth’s crust is shifting beneath us, we don’t notice it until and Earthquake or Volcano erupts.

And so it is the same with everything else. We don’t notice a change in our world until it happens to us. There’s a reason why we say that assumption is the mother of all f**k ups. We assume things will always be the same.

Change is happening whether you like it or not, better get used to it too. Heck, your job description is changing as we speak. Also get used to the fact that change isn’t just happening in your domain of interest or industry, it’s happening everywhere else. Everything is connected to everything. Take a wide angle view of the world and look at where else change is happening.

Nothing will always be the same.

 

Innovation posts of the week: Don’t ask for too much change

in Must reads of the week
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Where change happens

in Innovation

“Individuals who get startled by the future weren’t paying attention.” – Gary Hamel

Change is the only constant. Knowing where, how and why it happens can mean the difference between being disrupted by a startup and staying relevant tomorrow.

Here are a few places where change happens:

  • The way we work.
  • The way we eat.
  • The way we move around the planet.
  • The way we build our homes.
  • The way we use and generate electricity.
  • The way we communicate.
  • The way we entertain ourselves.
  • The way we take care of our health.
  • The way we dress.
  • The way we get medically treated.
  • The way we learn.
  • The way we connect to other people.

But, still, we must remember that it’s not that hard to know what’s changing, it’s making sense of it that matters.

This is a not complete list, but I think it would be useful if we could build one. What do you think, where else does change happen?

UPDATE: Updated the list with Ralph Ohr’s suggestions in the comments.

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Innovation posts of the week: Innovation Economics

in Must reads of the week

Great collection of reads this week which I encourage you to read while also following these smart people on Twitter.

 

Want more? You can find more in my Delicious bookmarks account, all good stuff!