If
your answer is "Because I said so",
you have given the standard parent
response.
If your
answer is " Because we
have always done it this way", you
have given the standard corporate response.
I had the opportunity to hear Stacey
Allerton Firth, VP Human Resources of
Ford Canada, speak a few weeks ago. Stacey
was the lead Ford negotiator during the
negotiation of the 2005 CAW (Canadian
Auto Workers) agreement. Stacey is not
what you would expect a lead negotiator
to look like, or even act like - yet
this negotiation was widely seen as a
major success and a model negotiation
for any industry. Stacey's success has
come from acting in a non-traditional
manner and by building a diverse team
to accent her strengths and weaknesses.
Here are some
things I learned from Stacey.
For personal
and corporate growth to happen we need
to start examining why we do things a
certain way. We need to start asking
some key questions:
- Exactly why do we do it this way? If
you don't remember and no one on your
team remembers why, it is probably time
to re-think the method.
- What
has been the success rate or benefits
of doing it the "standard" way?
- What
have been the failures or limitations
of doing it the "standard" way?
If
the benefits outweigh the limitations,
fantastic, you are on a good path.
But, we all need to remember that the
world has changed, technology has changed,
so we probably should as well. So, we
also need to ask:
- What are there new opportunities
we can grasp by doing things differently?
To find the best
approaches we need to understand the
data, the market, the expectations for
success, and the culture around us (our
own, our companies, our clients). We
need to examine the unique factors we
offer and use those differences to our
advantage.
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Scientific
Insights® looks forward to serving its
clients in 2007 with new and interesting projects.
