Does Your Strategic Thinking Need Another Point of View?

As you strive to make winning strategic choices, it is easy to be attracted to popular management concepts that seem to have the potential to reignite your business. For example, you may be addressing issues related to disruptive competition or to Big Data. Both of these popular management concepts can have a major impact upon your business.

But, are you going in the right direction as you strive to apply these kinds of management concepts?

We hear so much about popular management concepts that it seems natural to want to apply them. We are encouraged to use them so as not to be left behind. Responding to the threat of disruption, or even becoming a disruptor, can be a valuable step in the right direction for a business. Likewise, Big Data can be a valuable resource for guiding a business to greater success. These kinds of popular management concepts have the potential to make a huge difference in how well a company performs. After all, warding off the threat of disruption is valuable. So is tapping the vast information resources available in Big Data.

Nonetheless, focusing upon moving forward with these kinds of management concepts is not enough.

In addition to thinking how valuable these concepts are, it can be advantageous to look at the opposite point of view. Regarding disruption, this means not only thinking about how to ward it off, but also thinking about avoiding unnecessary panic. Attempting to transform your business during times of panic can leave you highly vulnerable to making the wrong strategic choices. And, the wrong strategic choices can easily disrupt your business far faster than potential disruptive competition.

Likewise for Big Data. With more and more data out there, and with technological advances now allowing analyses not possible years ago, Big Data can be a tremendous resource that guides a business to greater success. But, just like panicked responses to disruption, using Big Data can have a downside if the data is misinterpreted. Still, not all Big Data enthusiasts are concerned about its potential downside. For example, when I talk to someone who is enthusiastic about Big Data and I mention the importance of interpreting data in ways that avoid potential downsides, the enthusiast may indicate that they haven’t heard of doing that.

Yet, there are situations when misinterpreting data can have serious downsides. That is true today with Big Data, and that was true years ago as well. It was true back when all we had was some data, not Big Data. Thus, it was true years ago, when I was early in my career and my corporate job was much like what we call a data scientist today. The downside of data misinterpretation has been with us for a long time.

So, whether it’s disruptive competition, Big Data, or some other management concept, there can sometimes be a downside. That’s why rather than focusing solely on the upside of the latest management concepts, it is important to take the opposing view and consider the downside as well. Only by weighing both sides can wise decisions be made. Many situations do call for moving forward to reap the advantages of applying these popular management concepts. On the other hand, there will be situations where proceeding with the latest business concepts can have a downside that should not be ignored.

Thus, it is essential to weigh the alternatives. By considering additional points of view, you can make the strategic choices that are right for your company and can take it down the path to success.

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