“What if the Examined Life Turns Out to Be a Clunker As Well?”
Don’t let it — be open to other perspectives.
After a few months writing hiatus for one of the biggest projects of my career, I figure I can’t go wrong with writing about how important different perspectives are in marketing and in business.
“Plato says that the unexamined life is not worth living. But what if the examined life turns out to be a clunker as well.”
— Kurt Vonnegut, Foma and Granfalloons
Kurt Vonnegut’s riff on Plato got me thinking.
Marketing in the 21st century is all about measurements. (See there, I dated myself — I’ve been doing marketing since at least 1999.)
What are the KPIs, how are you going to optimize, what kind of data do you have to back up your strategy?
You run the risk of applying too many internal filters — your own or those of your organization.
So, in marketing — as in life — keep yourself open to new opportunities for learning and innovation by maintaining some balance.
Whether examining what’s working and what’s not in your marketing campaign, or evaluating your marketing strategy as a whole, take some advice from Tadashi in Big Hero 6: Look at it from another angle.
In business that could mean bringing on new talent with perspectives from other industries. Or leadership listening to (and encouraging) the sharing of ideas from below middle management level.
In my own career, I have had phenomenal experiences on both intrapreneurial* initiatives, and flexing to help out with special projects driven by other departments. In all of these cases, cross-functional collaboration was really key to creating a fresh take on the usual.
Unrelenting navel gazing can give you tunnel vision. You miss out on other perspectives, viewpoints and outlooks.
*It’s a word, I swear. Well, a business word, anyway. Kind of like marketing grammar. My favorite intrapreneurial project? Co-founding The Late Seating at Actors Theatre — a late night series featuring local artists in performance, music, visual art and more.
