Jack Kelly, Ph.D.

I remember my high school shop teacher used to always say this. Someone (yes sometimes me) would do something really dumb in shop, and he would emerge from his office shaking his head back and forth muttering “common sense is very uncommon.” As time went by, I learned that this was true, but I also learned that “common sense” could be developed with a little effort.

Steven Feinberg wrote an amazing book called The Advantage Makers: How Exceptional Leaders Win by Creating Opportunities Others Don’t. The book opens with a story that is really a great illustration of what I’d like to share with you today: Long ago, in Medieval Austria, a small but determined army was trying desperately to hold on to its fortress against tremendous odds. For months they’d been surrounded by a hostile army. With no way to contact outside help, their replenish stocks and supplies had dwindled to a desperate level. Only one cow and two bags of grain remained. The fortress soldiers, wracked with fatigue and hunger, turned to their commander for guidance. Expecting their leader to say, “Ration the food for as long as we can hold out,” they were surprised when they received a different reply. “Kill the cow, stuff it with all the grain we have and toss it over the wall when the next wave of attacks ensues.” This seemed illogical, foolhardy, and dangerous. During the next attack, they followed the unexpected order and heaved the grain-stuffed cow over the wall. Without a doubt, they anticipated a slow and anguished death by starvation, but the commander had foreseen something that no one else had. Confused by the bovine assault, several of the attackers took the cow back to their officer’s tent. The attacking officer saw it as a signal of defiance from the fortress commander as well as a message that the soldiers had the will to fight on. He reasoned that if they could afford to throw an entire cow stuffed with excess supplies over the wall, they must have vast stores of supplies, enough to last the winter. He ordered an immediate retreat. Can you imagine that? What the commander did may seem brilliant to us. We may wonder in awe how he came up with this stroke of brilliance. But in truth, what the commander did, while eloquent, was common sense.

What he had been doing was not working

In fact, had he decided to ration the food, in two more weeks they would have still been under siege, but without food, so no better off. So, he chose to shift his vantage point 180 degrees. He sent a counter-intuitive message to his attackers that they had plenty of supplies and to prepare for battle. This story demonstrates an important capacity you’ll want to develop as you
begin creating or restructuring your business.

Here is how I describe it

You have to practice seeing all of the interactions on the playing board, not a two-dimensional, flat board, but a three-dimensional view that enables you to see from all angles and perspectives. A two-dimensional view doesn’t let you see the relative position of things; you can become numb, insensitive, fooled into thinking you know what’s going on. You need a field of vision to see all of the players, the key gaps, the openings, so you can mobilize and get in position to be in front, and this must be an active process. To some degree the complexity of the relationships on the game board will be related to the complexity of your business model. But just like you want to know everything about your business, you’ll also want to know what is going on around your business. And just like you won’t need to do everything in your business yourself, you won’t need to tackle everything around your business yourself either.

But you DO want to understand it. And here is the best part: we’re going to teach you how. No kidding. We’ve been doing this kind of thing for a long time.

We will introduce you to techniques that leverage your natural strengths and accomplish success regardless of your circumstances. Are you curious? Do you think we can offer you something that will change your whole business model?

Contact us at The Opus One Group and let us show you how we can help you to turn your striving into thriving. We can only work with seven new clients, so don’t delay and contact us at once.