Apr 15, 2016 Written by Guest
How do you respond to a week that goes completely opposite as planned? In business we know that having processes in place is what makes for efficient operations, but what about when those operations don't work?
My week has been anything but normal and this disruption may be just what my businesses needed. When you hear the term disruption, do you think of a disturbance that interrupts an event, activity, or process? Or do you think of it as Clayton Christensen has defined: a disruption that creates a new market and value network and eventually disrupts an existing market, displacing the established?
What I have found is that these can be two-sides of the same coin. I realize that saying both definitions of 'disruption' work together is a bit like saying we should make lemonade out of the lemons we've been dealt.
Here's how I made something positive out of a week that went off the typical process.
My week has been anything but normal and this disruption may be just what my businesses needed. When you hear the term disruption, do you think of a disturbance that interrupts an event, activity, or process? Or do you think of it as Clayton Christensen has defined: a disruption that creates a new market and value network and eventually disrupts an existing market, displacing the established?
What I have found is that these can be two-sides of the same coin. I realize that saying both definitions of 'disruption' work together is a bit like saying we should make lemonade out of the lemons we've been dealt.
Here's how I made something positive out of a week that went off the typical process.
Monday: A week that started like any other. A mild disappointment of not getting the contract for a client we felt we could really help. Our love of the proposal we submitted was not returned by the client, and so the dating continues.
Tuesday: No office wifi. I think we would have been better off with no electricity, but like so many other businesses today, our marketing firm just cannot operate without wifi.
Some of our team worked remotely, others met at a spot with dial-up speed internet. It wasn't a total waste of a day, but not the productivity we need. We even had to cancel client meetings, because we were dispersed and our location of the day was LOUD.
Wednesday: The Marketing Eye Dallas team met to work out of a new co-working space. Once we moved past how quiet the space was and how badly the Attention Deficit Disorder took over in our new environment, we started working. We even had a meeting about using a new tool that would provide us even greater analytics. For a marketing firm, getting to play with a new analytical tool can be like a kid in a candy store.
The tool opened our eyes and gave us even greater insight into our marketing efforts than our current analytical tools. So off to analyzing we went.
Thursday: Our new digs came with a networking meeting so we all met some new faces. We felt we were back on track and half of our team was to meet for lunch before attending a client presentation. Just before we were to do our pre-meeting, our client rescheduled. Maybe his week was off too.
Rather than forgoing the pre-meeting lunch, we decided to have a full team strategy lunch. What was really great is at this lunch, we took the new analytics we had gained from the week, information received from our networking meeting and we got to work on a revising strategy for our own firm.
Not only was it the most productive lunch I had in years, I think it gave us all insight into where Marketing Eye Dallas is headed and our path to get there. Not only are we working together for the betterment of each other, we are becoming better every day at serving the needs of our customers.
This makes us so excited, because we truly feel our clients are getting much more for their investment than is possible with other alternatives.
Friday: With a week that seemed to go down all the wrong paths, our destination is much better than we had hoped. Today, I will spend my day hammering out a fresh strategy and starting on a few new ventures that will not only better my team and myself, but will add even greater value to our customers.
Maybe all we need is a shake-up every once in awhile. Lemonade cocktail anyone?
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