Great question. Try answering the following questions and see if they help.

1) How many hours work does each client get at Seventh Street (roughly)?

2) Do you use billable hour?

3) How much does your service cost? What is the average cost of similar types of services in the industry?

4) How long does it normally take to get a piece of work from brief-to-finished in the industry?

5) What is the standard work most clients are looking for?

6) Who are your clients? Government? SME? Corporate?

Remember, you’re trying to get a macro view of the way your industry works. Zoom out and ask yourself how the industry works. Once you have that, ask yourself:

1) What can we Reduce below the industry standard? In the Wii case above, Nintendo reduced the amount of CPU power below the industry standard.

2) What can we eliminate? Which of the factors that the industry takes for granted can we scrap?What doesn’t matter? In the Wii case above, Nintendo did away high-def graphics and storage capabilities.

3) What can we Raise? What are the factors of our offerin which we can raise above industry standards? In the Wii case, they raised the unique way people played the games, and blew away the market. People are still holding ‘controllers’ but they are using them in a totally unique way, beyond any other console allows.

4) What can we create? What can we create in our company which is currently not in the industry? Nintendo did this by creating the Mii…a personal based avatar which allows Wii players to vs each other, and communicate via the internet on the platform. Sure, some other games have done this (especially PC games such as World Of Warcraft etc) but none at the time had on a console. This added to the Wii offering, and helps make the very purchase of the console more viral.

Finally, ask yourself some other questions, such as:
1) Are there any other industries business models we could try? How do people a) sell roses b) sell videos c) sell funerals - and could you borrow any ideas from them?

2) How does nature do it? www.asknature.org

3) How else could I talk to about this?

I hope that helps! Comment back on how you go, I’d be keen to hear how you finish up.

Thanks muchly!!!

Steve

Thanks for tying that into Senge for me. I was trying to get there in my post but my mastery of The 5th Dicsipline is not strong enough to tie the lines together. Thanks for the valuable addition!

Sandra, there is a heap of stuff in Derek’s comment around how to progress from ‘young gun’ to ‘old master’ and especially in the book The 5th Discipline.

For Peter Senge, real learning gets to the heart of what it is to be human. We become able to re-create ourselves. This applies to both individuals and organizations. I would like to equate Personal Mastery with being an ‘Old Master’. According to Senge, Personal mastery is the discipline of continually clarifying and deepening our personal vision, of focusing our energies, of developing patience, and of seeing reality objectively. I’m not saying that you need to be old to achieve Personal Mastery, but to be on the journey of Personal Master will ensure that the young genius does indeed turn into the Old Master.

So the key for me is how do we ensure that the young genius is on the journey and stays the distance? Here is where the other disciplines come into play. If the young genius is plugged into an organisation or community that operates according to a shared vision, has the capacity to work with mental models, engages in team learning, and has an appreciation of systems thinking … they will be on a life long learning journey and not only can’t fail to contribute to their organisation and society, but will transform into an old master with time.

OK, so its a bit long winded … in essence what I am saying is that to create the generative environment that you are looking for we need to grapple with how to turn our organisations into learning organisations.

Great comment - hurry up and get that blog!!!

I’d only add that not every Gen Y is a young-gun and not every Baby Boomer is an old master, but the idea around of not driving wedges between people who have strived for mastery in their field (10,000 hours) and the young guns looking to shake the game up for all’s advantage is a key challenge for organisations in the future.

Personally, I hate being targetted as a ‘Gen Y’ as I feel it doesn’t really get me. I share alot of the traits, but I jive more with the thoery of the guys beind NEO Power (great book, terrible title) and Richard Florida.

I think we form part of the ‘Creative Class’ who troupe around doing great stuff. We have huge downsides too, such as often spending more than we earn and not really having a higher calling, but I think we can navigate those weaknesses between ourselves pretty well.

Certainly, this last year for me has been one of quite extreme introspection about what makes me, me. Almost like I’ve dropped from the ‘Green’ SDi down into the ‘Red’ zone, rebeling against what I have come to know. I’m still not really up on the SDi stuff, so you’ll have to let me know if I got the terms wrong, but it’s been interesting so far.

Thanks again for the comment, I can’t wait for Gladwells ‘Outliers’ to hit the shelves!

If we generalize here – as most people seem to do – Gen Y come into the workforce young, bright, vibrant and full of new ideas. They enter a new company and in a short period of time, can see where the cracks are because they are coming in with a fresh perspective and an unhindered, untarnished set of eyes, as well as being quite well-equipped with emergent trends from being so connected to the world of today, particularly through online channels. They want to make changes and can see how things could be done ‘better’. We can call these Gen Y souls the Young Geniuses.

BabyBoomers have been in the workforce for many, many years, and often in the same company for this long a time period also. They have worked hard to get to where they are and know their company and industry like the back of their own hand. They’ve been through it all and have the wisdom and the relationships that grey hair brings with it. They are proud of the contribution they have made to date, to their company, industry, country, and ultimately want to leave their mark behind on the world. We can call these BabyBoomer souls the Old Masters.

I guess my view on the growing debate around this is, does there really need to be such a gap between these two types of intelligence in the workforce? And must they be so opposed to each other? I think that both the young geniuses and the old masters in our society have an incredible amount of value to offer each other, and thus ultimately, an organization and industry itself. In essence, it is really about combining the old with the new.

However, I think a lot of the value in this relationship between old and new, gets lost in the fight for ego and pride. Old masters don’t want to surrender to young geniuses and they can tend to feel somewhat threatened by their ‘pizzazz’ because they know they aren’t as young anymore and can’t necessarily keep up with the ever-fastening pace. Young geniuses generally respond to this with attitude and the view that old masters are just collecting dust in the office. But young geniuses will never be able to compare with old masters in their experiences, their networks and relationship building, and just the breadth and depth of their knowledge across many different areas. So when you look at the diversity of skills and qualities that these two groups can bring to the table, I say, don’t you need both in an organization to succeed and ultimately, to foster innovation?

I think that many companies really tend to miss this point and that there is generally not enough collaboration between the young geniuses and the old masters. Bringing these two groups closer together instead of continually driving a wedge between them, will command a greater respect between them, and I think ultimately foster a more innovative culture in the workplace, as creativity and innovation often flourish when you put people together of diverse backgrounds and ages.

So in answer to your question Steve on whether I would prefer to be a young genius or an old master, I think that my answer is ultimately both. I am young now, being 21 years of age and a recent graduate, so I would like to see myself now as being en route to becoming a young genius. However, with time, experience and committing to life learning that can be gained from others’ knowledge and experiences, I hope to one day in the future turn into an old master, and then impart this knowledge onto the young geniuses of that time.

Thanks for the comment, I see what you mean. I love the analogy of the gifted left-footer who a coach may place on a wing (perhaps Stuart Dew and his role in Hawthorns premiership this year serves as a useful analogy?) and the focused training of right-footers to be able to kick with their left foot. John Buchanan famously trained the Australian Cricket team to throw with both hands…but still put Andrew Symonds at cover-point. It illustrates your point around playing to your strengths and training flexibility into your team.

Gladwell’s new book should be interesting, especially where the idea of the ’super-talented’ young gun meets that of the ’superbly trained’ older master.

Great posting. I love the conversation about the evolving nature of work.

The idiosyncreasies of talented people often frustrate those who work with them. My observation is that the more extreme the talent, the ‘darker’ the shadow side of that talent. As with many things, it is easier to see in the extreme.

The point is that I think there is a difference between ‘working on a weakness’ to develop strength, and increasing awareness of weakness in order to mitigate against its impact. Both are valuable.

It is easy to see it in sport. Learning to lick with my left foot (developing strength in an arena of weakness) can improve my capacity to be flexible and perform at an elite level. The same can apply to psychological preferences and workplace habits. This is subtley different to ensuring that there is an expert left-footer on the other flank.

But my experienec suggests that it is more difficult to learn new psychological and behavioural habits and competencies than it is physical competencies. So, perhaps the realistic approach in the workplace involves getting a team togther that covers ‘all’ the bases. The problem with most attempts to do this, ending up with mediocrity, is the lack of emotional intelligence to recognise the dynamics of teams with different talents, rather than expecting (unconsciously) that the team is a collection of generalists.

But I rave …