I’ll like to thank you all for your contributions and comments on the last article. Please keep them coming. In continuation of the series, I want to discuss the subject of strategic thinking. Let me start by asking this rhetorical question- who is likely to earn more between a cleaner and the C.E.O of a multi-national company? Why is this, the case? You could argue level of education, to which I’ll respond, have you not seen less educated persons employing more educated ones? You may say skills, again I ask, are there no employees better skilled than their employers? I believe the fundamental reason is that the higher the mental input a role requires, the higher the reward. The converse is equally true, the higher the physical input a job requires the lesser the reward. This is a fundamental principle of life, and what holds true at the level of the society, holds true at the level of the individual. In other words, if you must increase your personal productivity, you need to focus more on exerting your mind than you do your body. This is the concept of strategic thinking.
For the purpose of today’s discussion, I want to zero in on an aspect of strategic thinking- IDEAS. I believe the ability to come up with ideas is one of man’s greatest repertoire for achieving success. Painfully, not many people have the audacity to follow through an idea. Often times, this has to do with a wrong conditioning of the mind. This is the reason whenever we are faced with financial challenges; we are quick to think of getting a loan, working more hours, taking up another job etc. We hardly ever think of creating alternative means of income, and by doing this, we undermine our power to bring new things to life.
Below I discuss four steps necessary for developing ideas and bringing them to life, using the mnemonic I.D.E.A:
Information: Every thriving institution today is meeting a need. Ideas that guarantee success are those that meet needs either by creating something new or improving on what already exists. You need to be aware of events around you to know what needs exist. The awareness of existing needs gives birth to ideas. Shortly after the royal engagement between Prince William and Kate Middleton and announcement of their planned wedding date, some factories in China started the production and sale of wedding souvenirs including a much cheaper plastic version of the engagement ring. While many here in the UK talked about the event, others thousands of miles away converted the opportunity into money.
Development: every idea comes in a raw form, you need to process and develop it. This stage is about coming up with a clear picture of your finished product and how you plan to get there. For starting a company, developing the idea will include aspects such as researching, writing a business plan, registering the company name, obtaining a patency for a product. This is also the stage where you experiment your idea on a small scale. Doing this serves 2 purposes- firstly as a tool to help you enlist others and secondly to help you modify your plan if necessary. I reckon this stage is the rate limiting step in the process of transforming your ideas to achievements. It is no surprise therefore that this is the stage where many ideas die.
Enlisting: this is the stage where you bring in other people to help bring your idea to fruition including employing others. Persons enlisted may bring different things to the table including finance, skills, services etc.
Act- finally, overcome inertia, throw your idea open to the public. Your goods can only be consumed if people are aware of it. People can only request your service if they know about it.
Think about this, if everyone only focused on earning as paid employees, where would the jobs come from? Let’s discuss. You will greatly succeed.
