Expand your company’s potential
March 6, 2011 Leave a Comment
There is a famous quote, “Don’t tell me how educated you are, tell me how much you have traveled.” This recognizes the importance of varied experiences to comprehensive understanding of how to apply knowledge to a new situation and manifest the best results.
Variety is critical to understanding, adapting, and creative problem solving. In fact, there is evidence that lack of variety can result in a type of mental blindness. Psychological studies during the 1970′s by M. P. Stryker, H. Sherk, A. G. Leventhal, and H. V. Hirsch found that if feline kittens were restricted to seeing only horizontal lines during their development, they lost the ability to recognize vertical objects, and vice versa. Considered in more general terms, there is potential for mental myopia from any narrow focus over a long period of time.
A variety of experiences opens your mind to new ways of doing things. Unfortunately, many fields have been shifting toward being ever more specialized, where an individual works at being the best with an increasingly narrow focus. If your intent is to repeat one result over a long period of time, this approach works reasonably well. A limited focus still tends to result in overlooked improvement opportunities. You could be right next to an opportunity, yet not recognize it as such.
There is much benefit possible by applying broad experience and a fresh perspective. What do you do when you need help exploring new opportunities? If you are normally focused on your specialties, you can retain someone with the experience and ability to guide improvements. A certain subset of consultants provides this type of broad experience. I happen to be one of them.
In addition to travel, I have gained experiences by working with clients in hundreds of industries, each with unique needs. Every new experience has added to my overall understanding of how things work. I have more than 80,000 hours of diverse experience that I apply to gaining the best result.
I work with motivated stakeholders to improve the condition of their company or project. I apply a wide range of experiences and skills to get results. I accomplish this through collaboration, mentoring, and guidance that provides measurable benefit. I’m very successful in this capacity. I charge for results, not for the time to get there.