Can you spot the strategist in your company?
“The real challenge in crafting strategy lies in detecting subtle discontinuities that may undermine a business in the future. And for that there is no technique, no program, just a sharp mind in touch with the situation.”
― Henry Mintzberg
Business leaders are fond of saying that they need to innovate. Competitive advantage depends on innovation. Yet the very people who could drive that innovation are hiding out in Sales, IT and Finance. That’s because nobody, not even them, knows the talent they possess. They are as invisible as submarines.
Innovators and strategists make up about 8% of the world’s population. They are people who see patterns before everyone else does. They know instinctively if a product or service is going to succeed or fail. They think in pictures, colors and patterns. And despite their genius, their talents are the most ignored and unrecognized on Earth.
Business guru Marcus Buckingham reports on a survey about the use of talent in corporations. Workers were asked ‘What percentage of the time does my company use my natural talents?’ The answer in the average company was 32%. In the best companies it was 42%.
Here’s the shocking news about strategists and innovators. When these people were asked the same question about their talents they replied ‘Less than 10%’. Their extraordinary abilities to conceptualize better ways of working and design new products for the market are almost entirely ignored and unappreciated. Yet at the same time, the bosses of the companies where they work are demanding that the workforce deliver more creativity and more competitive business strategies.
It hardly makes sense, does it?
But here’s the reason. Strategists and innovators are being ignored because they are often shouted down by the conventional mob around them. Many of the greatest inventors in history succeeded against the odds, facing huge hostility to their ideas. But most were crushed by the mocking jeers of their bumptious colleagues and have left no footprint behind them. Is this happening in your company?
And in our own time, there are almost no management tools that can identify these far-seeing minds.
Almost.
Fortunately, huge breakthroughs in the area of teaming science have brought to the market new methodologies that can identify these precious talents and place them in a team where they can shine. Method Teaming® is the foremost of these methodologies. If your company is desperate to innovate and create new strategies to beat the competition, the people who can help you are already working for you. They are in your call center, accounts department or mailroom. They are your uncut diamonds, desperate to use the natural strengths they were born with.
Are you going to leave the 8% of your staff who are strategists and innovators to rot in roles they were never meant for? Or do you want to bring them out, polish them, and let them take you to No.1 in your industry?
The answer is obvious. But what are you going to do about it?
