At a creating strategic impact workshop, one attendee talked about breaking the business he runs and putting it back together in a new, different, and improved way.
Shortly afterward, I was on a conference call with an entrepreneurial business owner who mentioned reserving one day weekly exclusively for working on his business since he expects to be his own best client.
These two statements, one about breaking the business and the other about taking the time to do it, have been top of mind for me ever since.
Breaking the Business
As with a lot of entrepreneurial companies, I suspect, we don't spend nearly enough time doing for The Brainzooming Group what we do for our clients, i.e., imagining the future in new and innovative ways and detailing what it will take to make it reality.
There never seems to be the extra time, the right composition of people, or the mental distance to lead ourselves through the strategic thinking exercises and explorations we routinely facilitate for clients.
The result is our business changes have been too incremental, and frequently, not at the best times. We have been successful on some very important measures, but have not taken the business as far as we would have hoped and expected. We are very good in some processes to grow and develop the business and woefully behind in others. As I mentioned to Stephen Lahey recently, we’re overly deliberate on developing “how” we do things and way too random on “what we do” and “how we build the business. “
For example, new blog posts, strategic thinking workshops, and client strategic planning sessions always happen when they are supposed to happen. New downloads, email campaigns, and business initiatives to build The Brainzooming Group do not.
Creating Strategic Impact for Ourselves
While working on new strategic thinking exercises and questions for a blog the other night, the idea struck me: Why don't we try to break The Brainzooming Group into something new and improved, and write about that instead?
I haven't completely decided that's the next best thing to do, but it certainly feels as if it is. It simply seems like it's time to impose the same discipline on ourselves that we bring to our clients to help them in creating strategic impact.
But since this blog is for all of you, I have to ask, is that firsthand story of breaking the business something you’d want to read about here?
Let me know what you think. – Mike Brown
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The Brainzooming Group helps make smart organizations more successful by rapidly expanding their strategic options and creating innovative plans they can efficiently implement. Email us at info@brainzooming.com or call us at 816-509-5320 to learn how we can help you enhance your brand’s innovation strategy and implementation success.
