Make Curiosity Your Competitive Advantage
There was a time when lack of information was a pressing business challenge. But, in the current climate of over-communication and alternative facts, the challenge for today’s decision makers isn’t finding information, but how to identify the right information.
In an era of self-selection and content curation, it’s easy to let overconfidence, lack of vision or organizational bias drive critical errors in evaluating information. What if Blockbuster had better information about demand for streaming content or Sears had better insight into the shifting desires and behaviors of shoppers in the digital era? In each instance, the right insight or right outside opinion could’ve influenced a better decision.
So, how do successful businesses make good decisions? Faced with the same abundance of information, how do they determine what to pay attention to and what to ignore? They share a curiosity to look beyond typical sources and seek new, different perspectives. And, more importantly, they share an ability to extrapolate the meaning and ramifications of that information and the vision for how to put it into action. From mergers and acquisitions to product launches or business operations, before the results show up on a P&L sheet, it’s this vision for finding the right information and seeing in it a different set of outcomes and opportunities than the competition that determines a company’s potential for success.
Hindsight isn’t helpful when you don’t know what information and which decision could change the trajectory of your business. And, as the pace of business accelerates and change comes from every corner of the globe, confidence in the quality of information is increasingly dependent on the ability to uncover and evaluate your sources. Curiosity and skepticism are no longer a competitive advantage, they’re a requirement for survival.
Are you and your team seeking out new and novel sources of information to vet all possibilities? Do you know where to get the insights you need to make the right decision? Your success depends on it.
