Schlagwort-Archive: Thinking

Polaris – the ideal metaphor for a business landmark

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On the open sea and without appropriate landmarks people orient themselves with the help of the sky. During the day, the sun leads you. At night one uses the visible stars, which move on a circular path. All stars are on the move? No! One star seems to be fixed above the North Pole. This gives seamen in the northern hemisphere for centuries the opportunity to determine north without a compass. The distance to the horizon allows the calculation of the latitude, where the observer is located. In business life, a corresponding, widely visible reference point is needed.

Just as the cardinal points can be deduced from the pole star, the significant business landmark provides the basis for the alignment of the collective attitude. The business Polaris influences the following aspects.

  • Perception
    We do not perceive everything that is there, but, depending on the current mood, we filter out what fits best at this moment. Basically, each of our five senses is set to a defined bandwidth. In addition, our mindfulness determines what we extract out of the flood of information. As a result, perception influences our thinking.
  • Thinking
    The thinking becomes more sensitive in the course of life. The concepts and models are stabilizing and becoming clearer and more coherent. The personal standpoint enforces individual opinions. In order to get to a common perspective, a guiding system is needed that determines the collective thinking and the joint messages.
  • Communication
    Once the group exchanges ideas, a common language is needed. It contains words, pictures and other means of communication as well as a common understanding. Since the exchange of information can not convey the actual meaning, everybody needs a harmonized resonance space that provides similar associations. As a result, the real action is pushed into similar paths.
  • Action
    The intention is implemented only by the doing. Thereby the message gets further distorted, since individuals are also influenced in the doing by unconscious reflexes and feelings. However, the action creates that way the facts that do not match the original intention. Through a guiding principle, the actions are always re-bundled and aligned to each other.

The group members follow their personal interests. The guiding star allows the adaptation of the interests and to unanimously navigate through the flood of stimulants, the structures of the mental models, the vague messages and the diverse actions. The definition of a given reference point allows the participants to move independently in the agreed direction. Such a pole star is a fundamental business topic such as customer orientation or product orientation or process orientation.

Bottom line: The basic course of the company can be determined by a simple business landmark. This activates the appropriate filters in the workforce, which adjust the perception. Thinking revolves around a fixed reference point. The vocabulary ultimately includes terms that everybody interprets in a similar way. At the end, harmonization becomes visible through the actions of each individual. The landmark helps determining all further steps – as well as the use of the pole star for navigation on the open sea. This makes Polaris the ideal metaphor for the business landmark.

The Way out of unimaginativeness

It is wrong to believe that everybody must find new things. Ideas alone are not sufficient. They must also be designed, applied and continuously shared. This requires designers, application specialists and communicators. However, without the idea generator there is nothing to convert. Nevertheless many people believe that they should be part of the idea finding. But for some people the white sheet of paper, which has to be filled with the idea, is an insurmountable hurdle. The Way helps out of the unimaginativeness.

Ideenlosigkeit

If you have no idea and you start copying results without thinking, you cannot choose an idea or you complain about not having time to think, then you need a way out of unimaginativeness. For this purpose the next three steps may help.

  • Thinking
    Above anything else it is important that you take time for thinking. You can choose how this works best for you. Some people walk around the block and find thereby their solution. Others browse through books or magazines and pick up a thread. Still others need a sheet of paper, which they fill with sketches and scraps of words that result after several iterations in a consistent structure. No matter how, you have to invest time. Without time nothing else remains for you, than leave yourself to the fate of the unimaginativeness.
  • Developing
    After the idea is there, the real work begins. The individual aspects must now be prepared and reconciled. This step follows seamlessly the first one. Now it is important to research and collect facts and eventually to describe a consistent paper that fits into the desired context. This requires more time than first one. For this reason it is suggested to accomplish these elaborations in a team. Based on the first step, you have sufficient material, in order to distribute the work across several shoulders. In addition you receive additional perspectives that lift the concept over the first hurdles of critics. Also in this step you must accept that you have to invest time.
  • Internalizing
    After the paper is ready, it has to fit into reality. This can only be done, after you internalized it. For this purpose, you read the results and consider how you can apply them. Now, you can go into the first application and identify and adapt the last flaws. If you launch too early in the target areas, the flaws grow exponentially and the draft does not have a fair chance to survive. Also the internalization needs sufficient time, in order to achieve their targets.

If you do not start to follow the path, then you already arrived at the goal – or in other words, no sweet without sweat. Exactly the same happens with the unimaginativeness. If you do not take time, in order to think about the circumstances, to develop and to internalize the concept, you remain without ideas. In this case other capabilities do not help.

Bottom line: Ideas do not fall from the sky, but they are the result of arduous and continuous thinking work. It follows the steps of thinking, developing and internalizing. This way out of the unimaginativeness requires effort and time. Not everybody has to walk through each phase. For you it is only important to find out, which part of the way fits best to you.