Achieving breakthrough performance should make you very uncomfortable. I was working with a client in the automotive industry the other day, and I said something that resonated very strongly with them. They asked me about it afterward, several times, so I know that I had struck a chord. I said this:
“If you don’t have someone in your company asking really uncomfortable questions all the time you had better get one. Fast.”
This grabbed them because, like so many companies I see, they had no such person. Sure, the company was good about being as introspective as they could be (in fact they were better than most), but they really couldn’t put a finger on that one person who was constantly asking, “why do we do it this way?”
Many times that job falls to me. I walk into companies knowing almost nothing about the industry or its jargon or the way that it works. I’ll ask a pivotal question that usually gets a chuckle or two and then, “well, no one has really ever asked that question before”. A few are left asking “hey, who invited him?” What follows, however, is a truly meaningful debate on what that question even means. That reaction makes my heart sing. These are precisely the kinds of debates that companies should be having every day if they have any chance of achieving breakthrough performance. Forget about ideas like “Digital Transformation” unless you have the mindset to question every aspect of how the company works.
Let me illustrate with an example.
I was working with an oil and gas firm many years ago building a mathematical model of their drilling operations. We were hard at work one day sketching out the rules as to how the drilling operations unfold. They said to me, “George before we begin an exploration well, we need at least 5000 acres leased up around that well location”. Naturally, I asked why, and they proceeded to explain that if you don’t have a “lease buffer” around the well and it hits a good sized reservoir, you will end up making your neighbors very rich at your expense. “Fine”, I said, “that makes a lot of sense. But where did the 5000 number come from?”.
Silence.
“Uh, well… that’s the number we’ve always used.”
No one in the room could remember precisely where the number came from, but it became clear that this number was handed down, generation to generation of drilling engineers, without ever being formally questioned. Not too surprising given that senior level drilling engineers are God-like figures in many oil and gas firms.
When we tested this number with our models, we found that yes indeed, 5000 was a pretty durable figure. Yet, at the margins, sometimes that number should be higher or lower to achieve optimal speed and profitability for the program at hand. We then set about building an algorithm that would give the asset teams some guidance about the size of the buffer appropriate to a particular field.
So, I will repeat my advice to you. Get someone inside the company—perhaps even from a different industry altogether—who makes a really annoying habit of asking questions that are both hard and embarrassing to answer. Achieving breakthrough performance should make you very uncomfortable. That person will be worth their weight in gold.
What if someone at Yellow Cab had asked why customers couldn’t get a ride through a hailing app? Consider, what would have happened if someone at Hilton Hotels had asked about competition coming from homeowners? What if manufacturers of prosthetic devices had asked about 3D printing? Time and again we see that if we had been asking these crucial questions, at the right time, we would be debating the best solutions and achieving breakthrough performance. Don’t let this happen to you. Make everyone around you annoyed and uncomfortable with your constant questions. The spoils of victory await the rebellious.
About the Author
George Danner is an Author, CEO, Data Analyst, Futurist and Keynote Speaker. For more information on booking George for your next conference keynote, please visit: https://georgedanner.com/book-george-danner/