Counterintuitive

I subscribe to The Heretic. It is authored by Pascal Finette, a member of the Singularity University team.
Last week he sent out an email advising to do the counterintuitive. It worked for AirBnB, Uber and eBay.

At his current company, The Heretic, Pascal says:
1. They decided not to grow.
2. They only work with clients where they have a strong conviction they can make a difference.
3. They help people work with their competitors.
4. They refuse to take money for referrals.
5. They always do what they think is right for the client, even if it hurts them (the Heretic).
6. They tell prospects they don’t need them if that is what they think.
7. They give away most of what they do for free.

That list gave me pause. At Lazer Grant we are good on 4 of the above points, okay on 2 points and do not do 1 point – we are looking to grow. We believe that to keep the good young people we have, we need to provide them with interesting and challenging work. And to do that we need more of it. We do need to grow.

We are not great working with our competitors (#3).

We give away a lot of knowledge and experience (#7) and it does not come to ‘most’ of what we do.

The remaining 4 (#2, #4, #5 & #6), we do and do well. They are consistent with our core values and reason for being. We exist to help our clients and our people grow and this is how it’s done.

Pascal says their results are:
1. They are doing super well.
2. They have amazing clients and
3. are having fun.

We are right there with him.

It is beneficial to contemplate how your business can get the same results. Often the activities are, like Pascal’s, counterintuitive. It will be work to figure out. If you would like some assistance or perhaps just a sounding board we would be delighted to assist!