Lost?

I've been trying to help my friend find himself. What I mean is my buddy Josh is in the market for a GPS because he recently bought a sailboat and on his second time taking it out ran aground. For boaters they've been popular for along time because water navigation isn't exactly easy as Josh can attest to.

The electronic devices have become the new tech gadget the last few years, many cars even include them in their basic packages along with air conditioning. Most people probably don't need them the majority of the time-unless of course you're in outside sales or in the Indiana Jones business. I do think as humans, they provide the cozy feeling that you'll never really be lost. I think the other benefit they have for many people is they allow us to avoid planning where we’re going, just enter the address and the little man inside will tell you "turn right in .3 miles on Chester Avenue."

Looking for GPS's makes me wonder how organizations can avoid the same kind of incident that happened to my buddy Josh. I think to a certain point you can't
-accidents will happen.

Nevertheless there are things that can be done to avoid disaster. You can plan you're route, make sure you haven't drifted off course. Unless off course is where you need to be, in which case you're no longer off course you just need to stop and plot a new course. Be you're own personal GPS and conduct assessments. Ask yourself, "where are we now?"

I can feel you nodding you're head and rolling your eyes. You know this, of course you need to look at your organization. But the truth is assessing your organization isn't limited to your balance sheet. Typical responses whenver assessments are mentioned also include "we hold 8% of the market share," "we know our customer," and "we've got a great understanding of our industry." While answering these questions is important they don't prevent your organization from being my buddy Josh and they don't prevent you from being the next in the category of irrelevant products along with pantyhose and Polaroid.

When you ask yourself, “where are we now?” it means you look at your organization from the perspective of the satellite that beams the information down to the GPS.

(shameless plug) When you still need a little help finding out where you are or maybe just a little guidance hire a consultant to whisper in your ear "turn left."