Over the last few months, I have been talking with some Technology Channel leaders regarding my Vision of future Channel Distribution. A Vision I named “The Innovation Channel.” As these discussions take place, I am reminded of how determination lessens in value as some age. This thinking brought me to the creek which ran through the neighborhood I lived in years ago as a child.
That creek we played in had a Big Rock; this Rock was obstructing the way the creek flowed down to the pond at the bottom of the hill, this Rock would cause the creek to dam. All of us kids knew that in-order for the creek to run free the Rock must be moved. We were all determined this Rock would be moved by summers end
The Rock, was huge, the size of a car and weighted surely as much. It took most of a summer for us kids to pry Big Bertha, free (of course we named the Rock). None of us who took turns digging around it ever considered for one minute our mission would fail. In our minds, we saw the creek flowing uninterrupted we saw Big Bertha rolling down the creek freeing the water. We didn’t think about how heavy the rock was, or how long it had been there buried in the mud of the past, or how many, or if any snakes would be freed to bite us, as the Rock came loose. We didn’t’ care that the older wiser kids would laugh as they watched our determined efforts fail over and over. Well, our determination and fortitude paid off. We had our victory after around seven weeks when the Rock broke loose and found its way down the creek where it sunk to the bottom of the pond, our mission was complete, and our summer was over.
Whether it’s a Rock or a mindset, the flow of water, or the flow of ideas, neither will flow when block. In the physical world it’s easy to remove obstacles, we see them clearly in front of us, and with determination, we move them. However, in the world of one’s mind these dam's, we create of past thoughts and current thinking, block the flow of visionary thinking. We can’t participate in the future when our minds are stuck in the mud of the past, or can’t break free from the prison of the present.
Leaders, we all need to be determined to clear the past from our minds like the Kids in the Creek cleared the Rock. Just because we don’t see what’s ahead doesn’t mean we should not proceed. The highway of business does not have any stop signs in the fast lane to the future. There our yield, and caution signs but never stop signs. Like those physical obstacles we see and move, we must also remove the mental barriers of the past and present.
“When we stop looking for absolutes is when we discover the excitement of the unknown.”
The flow of ideas builds its energy from the collaborating efforts of open minds, minds which have the capability to imagine. It’s from this collaboration that new ideas give birth to something amazing. Nothing is ever created from individualism. Without collaboration, nothing happens. So if your focus is collaborating with like minds, you will build more of the same you may improve something but will never create something entirely new. Relevancy knows when something new is a better solution than improving something which is obsolete or heading there.
Today many with-in the Technology Industries will see seismic shifts in not only technology itself but in the way it’s Used, Purchased, Serviced, and Delivered. End-users of technology will have more ways to absorb the benefits of technology than ever before. Technology is the one sure thing that continuously changes. Today’s biggest challenge for legacy technology reseller is keeping up with what new innovative technology companies reinvent, and how those reinventions will effect technology resellers and their deliverables.
“Jeff Bezos, did not beat Barns & Nobel because he was richer or bigger he wasn’t, he beat them because he bet they would never focus on the future while they lived in the past, he obviously won. Many organizations could learn from this, of course Jeff, is betting they didn’t.”
More and more we are witnessing the fall of many once great companies and industries. Today most of these failures were a cause of a failed Technology Program. The outdated systems of the past will destroy those who refuse to innovate. Many companies will continue with outdated ERP System, outdated sales tactics, outdated CRM’s and outdated management strategies. These outdated companies will see new competitors. Competitors who find and acquire their customer by utilizing tools and technologies unimaginable to those companies stuck in the past and think their present is the future, companies who refuse to invite imagination to their decision tables. Legacy organizations will continue looking in the same places for new answers while their new unknown and unimagined competitor looks in new places, places where they find these legacy organizations stubbornly stuck in the past and denying the challenges of the present. These new disruptors have the advantage of creativeness an advantage which is compounded by technology like never before. Ironically there are a lot of technology resellers who still believe that technology is about selling things. If these resellers understood that end-users don’t care about the things, they care about the results they need from things, and both things and desired results change at quicker speeds than ever in history. Today’s business landscape is the disrupters’ Playground, and can easily become the legacy players’ Graveyard.
So like the kids in the Creek, get determined and just move the Big Rock, so the water of ideas will run smoothly to the pond of collaboration.
In Closing: as I say repeatedly
“A company becomes obsolete when they focus on bringing the Past to the Future Instead of bringing The Future to the Present.”
If you like this article send me a LinkedIn Invite or send me, an e-mail raystasieczko@gmail.com Collaboration starts with conversation.
R.J.Stasieczko
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