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Thursday, September 18, 2008

Finding the Similar in the Dissimilar


I had an interesting experience this morning while presenting to a small group of executives about the power of adding graphics to the facilitation process. One person was explaining how there are two types of customers or clients that are favorable: Large profit companies and any company whose profit as a percent of revenue is healthy. I asked if there were any similarities there. This is one of my showstopper questions that I need to work on when I am facilitating. I know my "going fishing" sometimes paints me into a corner. I can always tell s I see vocal chords lock up and eyes begin to glaze over. Any advice would help.

My intention though was to find the common amongst the uncommon because what lies there is gold. Innovation is two ideas coming together that have never met before and when we can find that cross section this is where disruptive products, services, process and models lie. I welcome your comments.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mark,
Can you further define a "large profit company" and "any company whose profit as a percent of revenue is healthy"? These are such vague descriptions that it's hard to know what either would actualy look like.

Anonymous said...

My comment follows Paul. The two companies mentioned by the executive sound like signposts, maybe not the destination.

Maybe instead of jumping to "what similar about the two" the question is something more geared toward teasing out more detail on the qualities of both those clients, THEN looking for similarities. You may find the similarities become obvious as part of the facilitation process.

Mark Pinto said...

That makes a lot of sense. Thanks, Dave.