Hockey Sticks and Cell Phones
What makes us want to look down at our cell phones SO OFTEN?
Do you ever wonder that?
You could be at dinner with your family that you haven’t seen in awhile, or with a good friend, or with a colleague in the middle of a great conversation…
And, it CALLS TO US without ringing…
Sure, there are times when you know you are expecting an email, a proposal, a response, so those are specific times… But, I would argue, if you are honest, that the vast majority of times that I feel that urge to check my cell… I’m not expecting anything specific…
SO WHAT is it that makes me so viscerally want to reach for my phone?
Sure, maybe its just me…
Maybe it’s never happened to you…
Yeah sure… maybe ;-)
So, hang onto that question.
These past weeks we have been working on our marketing plan for 2015. And, we have put, in my opinion, roughly 500% or more activities on the plan than we have ever had in the past, and our resources and budget are just about the same as they have always been. The team feels like “we can make that happen”. I am certain that we can’t…
When I was looking for a business to buy years ago, I noticed virtually the same visual on every revenue graph I looked at.
The “hockey stick” graph, some people call it.
On the graphs that I was looking at, it was time along the horizontal X axis (left to right) and Sales along the Y axis (up and down).
The graph started out with a slow incline, 2 or 4 % increase per year most of the time, and then there would be an “inflection point”… a point in time where the graphy would completely change in slope to 20 or 30 or even 40% per year.
The graph was almost always some version of this dynamic… slow growth and then all of a sudden massive growth.
The “inflection point” was always the same…
TODAY!!!
In essence, the graph was the “ACTUAL” growth (to the left of the inflection point), and “FORECASTED” GROWTH to the right.
The story line went like this, “Well we have had a very successful 20 years since our founding. We have grown an average of 3% per year for 20 years. I recently hired my brother in law (replace with other relative, ex coworker, magician) who is working on a new product line that is going to revolutionize our business. We expect to triple the size of the business in the next 3 years!”
I smile thinking about this story, because it played out so very often in such similar ways.
I am one that believes you certainly can change your pace of growth from 3% to 30%. That is absolutely possible and it requires significantly more investment (money, people and value proposition). A truly “breakthrough concept” will deliver great growth, but WHY do we always think we are ON THE BRINK, ON THE EVE of a whole different growth pace?
I see it every year when we do our strategic and operational plans. Intelligent, well intentioned people, over and over put all of the activities in the first quarter, and then nothing the rest of the quarters. We can do it!
Well, lets look at what we got done last year… how many of the things that we said we were going to do, did we get done? Not all… hmmmm. And, we had all four quarters to do them… hmmm…
REALITY vs FUTURE
There is something about the ways that our minds work that make our “plans” into the future unbound by the realities of our past.
I am a champion of “JUST BECAUSE WE HAVEN’T SUCCEEDED IN THE PAST, DOESN’T MEAN WE WONT SUCCEED AT THE SAME THING IN THE FUTURE.”
I believe that to my core… but there needs to be a rational argument /plan to support the more aggressive expectations. There needs to be materially different / typically incremental investment to deliver incremental results. And, its seldom linear…
When I think about business and planning, I try to remember the truth of our past. And, NO I don’t want to repeat it. I want to do more, be better, all that stuff… but I need a real plan to do that OR I need to make smarter choices and expect similar effort with slightly higher return.
I don’t want to get too far off the message…
WHY DO WE HAVE THIS VISCERAL NEED TO CHECK OUR CELL PHONES?
I think this is all tied together.
Emotionally, mentally, psychologically… we so very much WANT or WISH the future to be better than our past, that we simply EXPECT the future to be better.
Most of us, if people ask us what we are capable of… specially if its about a plan (that doesn’t tie into US (we are a little more humble) but ties into what we may be able to deliver (sales, marketing, proposals, widgets, capacity… all the WORK STUFF)…
Our brains absolutely believe we can do more than the past suggests.
I believe we look at our cell phones because reality is already known.
We know who we are having dinner with…
We know who we are meeting with…
It’s ACTUAL deliberables… it’s the KNOWN past and present…
And, we flip our phones over viscerally, I believe, thinking, hoping, expecting something bigger, sweeter, more interesting, better in some way than our current reality.
I am not suggesting that its conscious.
I am not suggesting that we are unhappy or unsatisfied with our current reality.
I am suggesting that for whatever reason, we are wired as human beings to expect more in the future and we are constantly predicting it and looking for it.
Maybe I’m wrong… but I don’t think so.
I can feel it in my being… when I flip the phone over, rationally I know it will be nothing new… but deep in my spirit there is this unknown, subconscious, expectation that something great awaits.
And I believe greatness is in the past, present and future.
I believe we should NOT limit us by our history and our past.
I am just a CHAMPION of the moment.
Channel that desire that expectation for MORE and for BETTER, and integrate it into the learnings of the past.
That requires mindfully and deliberately NOT looking at our phones expecting something better, but staying engaged in the conversation that we are in to FIND it… to CONSTRUCT it and to LIVE it.
I want to build plans that demonstrate that we are getting better.
But, I’d rather predict and deliver 15% growth, up from 5%, than forecast 30% year over year and always stay on 5%....
Not sure if this makes any sense…
It does to me ;-)
Be mindful but not limited by the past.
Be excited but not unrealistic about the future...
Embrace the world in front of you, and think about what draws you to your screens...
Keep finding your harmony…
Nestor