Hello all, Rob DeRobertis for the Technology Marketing Center... and here are Five things about living in the gray.
When I was younger, I saw things very much in Black and White. Two things happened in my life that changed that perspective. One was the birth of my son; the other was learning Japanese culture. For anyone who has become a parent, I think you can emphasize that bringing a child in the world really changes your worldly perspective. I remember prior to parenthood, how I lived a very structured world, then after the introduction of our son, well, our world turned upside down. I would like to say that after 21 years, the world righted itself, but that is not how it is.
Later, as I prepared to do business in Japan, I immersed myself in understanding the Japanese culture. There was on item I learnt that amazed me at the time. In Japan it considered a normal opinion that an answer can be yes and no to a question. Getting your head around this idea is difficult for a Westerner but once you do, it helps you live even better in the gray. I think living in the gray helps one balance decision making and also helps understand organizational dynamics.
So here are five things to consider when living in the gray.
1) Who is right when the engineering team wants to deliver a flawless product and marketing wants to get to market ASAP?
2) What do you do when the CEO wants to increase profits and the sales team wants to increase revenue and take market share?
3) What happens when the marketing team wants to launch a new innovation while the financial team is managing down spending?
4) What do you do when the customer wants a product with all the features in half the time anyone can deliver?
5) How do you bring on the best talent while managing fixed spending?
The answers are almost never one or the other, but a blending of both. These are all rational problems where negotiation and time are variables. Negotiation is a difficult, slowly achieved, meeting in the middle but the more the team is willing to accept “gray” as the answer the faster the team will move. Time is best deployed when one aspect can be deployed at a different time as the other. For example, deciding to strategically take market share then to maximize profits later. The answer isn’t “if” but “when”. Both answers may be right, it is simply a timing problem.
Thinking in the gray is a critical leadership quality. Being able to see both the “Yes” perspective and the “No” perspective is a level of maturity that enables driving organizations forward.
So when you look in the mirror, do you see Black and White or Shades of gray? I guess the answer is “That Depends…”.
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