Monthly Archives: April 2013

#110 Creative acumen

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In my post on types of acumen, I missed out one type: “creative acumen.”

This type of acumen is need to create the “wow” in your solutions. It will create a Purple Cow, the sizzle in the steak, the improvisation in jazz music, the simplicity of great design, the effortless power when you hit the sweet spot, an elegance that cannot be described (only felt). When you see the “wow,” words will fail you, in fact, they will not be needed. It is a state of pure bliss.

Knowledge workers live for the moments when their creative acumen creates the “wow.” At that moment, including the journey to get there, money does not matter. In fact, its never about the money.

This is one explanation why the creative types feel exploited (because they are exploited), and more often than not, live a life that is not satisfying financially. Such people have to overcome a kind of resistance, the resistance to suspend their craving for excellence and purity, face the realities of the real world, and develop other types of acumen. It is not necessary to sacrifice one type of acumen to gain proficiency in another.

Gaining a well rounded set of acumen is a mind set that can be cultivated with proper training. It can be done. It is not easy, which is why so few people do it successfully.

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#109 Business Strategy versus Operations

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When you work with your customers, are you working on an initiative that will change or improve the value proposition to your customer and position yourself favorably as compared to your competitors? Some examples are:

  • Launching a new product or service (new model of smartphone).
  • Adding features to an existing product or service (subscription service instead of one time payment).
  • For the same product or service, changing the way a product is created (hybrid version of a gas car) or service is delivered (online movies versus cable).

Some “softer” examples of the above are: demonstrating gender equality, giving back to the community, and being sustainable. These don’t add value to the core offering, but influence decisions on whether to work with your organization.

Or, are you working to implement the decisions taken around “how to deliver” the value proposition? The customer usually does not care about this. Some examples are:

  • Outsource work that was previously done by employees.
  • An upgrade to your ERP software.
  • Improving recycling of waste generated by your manufacturing process.
  • Implementing Six Sigma and streamlining business processes.

We won’t debate which is more important. Sequence (strategy before operations) and alignment is key.

Be clear on what you are working on, because the definition of success and competencies required are different. “Strategy” sounds more glamorous, but the blocking and tackling in “Operations” is what makes the powerpoint plans work!

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