To Enact Change, First One Needs to Adopt Another Perspective
A friend who worked for a large Petroleum Company sat in my kitchen. An engineer by trade, his bonus depended upon his division’s performance. His division produced large plastic sheets that are shipped to manufacturers of plastic products. His division was informed that one of its largest customers was about to move to a competitor. I knew nothing about the manufacturing process of plastics. He was venting; I was listening.
Prompted by the simplest, “John” droned on about the manufacturing process and then the shipping process. He explained the construction of the large plastic sheets (impervious and nearly indestructible), several inches thick. They were boxed and placed on skids for shipping. How can a competitor be more than 10% cheaper?
One of my daughters, 14 at the time, was coming in and out of the kitchen getting food and drinks for her friends hanging out in our basement great room and the pool. She heard bits and pieces of John’s story. She turned to John and said, “Mr. Jones, why do you need to place these plastic sheets in boxes to ship if they are nearly indestructible? Seems like a lot or work for nothing.”
John’s eyes opened wide. “I’ve got to go.” John went home and being an engineer, crunched numbers. He met with his boss and his boss’s boss the next morning. The answer was 30%. Thirty-percent fewer skids and no cost for the process of boxing the materials translated into a 34% reduction in shipping costs. He found his delta. The company retained the business and John received his bonus.
This global petroleum company had hundreds of engineers, financial and operational staff, and salespeople involved in this division. Yet, it was the perspective a 14-year-old teenager who was already smoking too much weed to ask the question that should have been obvious. These people were so entrenched in their everyday business for so many years, they were unable to shake their engrained perspectives – they could literally not “think out of the box.”
It begs the question; how can people embrace and enact change when they cannot adopt another perspective? This conundrum is the essence of why executives need to sublimate their egos and receive guidance in learning not only to ask questions but delve into these questions and acquire new perspectives in addressing the challenges facing their businesses. Knowledge is not knowing the answers but seeking to understand the questions. Designing a company culture of inquiry and collaboration is the true path to dynamic growth and outpacing one’s competition.
