Dave, you don’t understand. That can’t work because…..
There are few guarantees in life. Here’s one. If you believe that something won’t work, it won’t. Unless you try it, it cannot work. The tragedy is that it may have been a solution to a long-standing puzzle.
The next time you hear an idea that is different, and the skepticism begins to rise, try another response. Ask some questions. “How might that work for us?” and “How can we test this and see how it works?” You don’t need to believe in something for it to work, you just need to try and test it to determine if it will work. The only guaranteed failure is the failure to run the experiment.
Until you try something, you don’t know if it will work. If you dismiss it, and don’t try it, you lose the opportunity to find out.
Become a curious scientist. Drop your expertise and ego, and try something different. Go in with a game attitude and measure the results. This is the process of improvement. Sitting in the critic chair and dismissing ideas and new ways of doing things is the sure-fire way to stagnation and ultimate failure.
Here’s your challenge. Identify a long-standing problem in your life or business. Research and brainstorm several new strategies to test and measure. Include some “unlikely” ones. Then, without prejudice, try them and observe and measure the results. Run the test long enough to get valid results. You don’t have the bet the farm, and go for broke. Just run a little side experiment and see what happens. It will be interesting and fun. Test, measure, and tweak. Soon you will have a new, better way.
Engender an attitude and culture of curiosity in your business and life. Ditch the victim statement, “We can’t do that because we’ve never done it that way in the past.” Break out of the prison of stale mediocrity and try something new for a change. Who knows what might happen? All growth happens when you are doing something new and a bit unfamiliar.
