Avoid Professional Tunnel Vision

Too often I will give a real-world example in a program or seminar and have someone complain that the example isn't relevant because it doesn't come from their industry. Bankers think they can't learn from retailers. Retailers think they can't learn from construction. Construction people think they can't learn from health care. Health care people think they can't learn from manufacturing. Manufacturing people think they can't learn from Bankers.

It frankly drives me nuts because I know from experience that for most managers, the problems we face have already solved by someone else, maybe in another industry. The improvements we want have already been implemented by someone else, probably in another industry. The breakthrough innovations we seek are already underway somewhere else, possibly in the world of R&D.

Our job as leaders and managers is not to create new and inventive ideas to resolve every situation we face; our job is to find ideas that work. And often times an idea that will work can be found if we learn to look outside of our chosen area of expertise, outside of our industry, outside of the world as we know it. But if we're going to think outside of the box, we also have to learn to stop saying "It won't work for us" and start saying"How can we make it work for us?"

That is not to say that we should never be the pioneer, the creator, the inventor, the person who creates a better way; but it does say that we are wasting our time being the inventor if the invention already exists.


About me: Dan Pelley illustrates advances in science and technology and their implication for managers as part of his "Proactive Leadership" program, one of five programs leading to a Certificate in Supervisory Management. 137 companies in Connecticut, Rhode Island, Connecticut. Massachusetts and New York have one or more people who earned this certificate.

Copyright © 2009 Daniel W. Pelley
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