About a month back, my company promoted a video challenge. Everyone was encouraged to pick up a video camera, or cellphone, and shoot a 90 second video about the company’s culture. The prize for the winning video was nothing more than bragging rights; and that was ok.
The first business unit to publish their video drew plenty of attention — and rightfully so. I remember thinking, oh, it’s on. I thought of different ways to approach this. Then, I thought… why not form a committee and ask them for their ideas. So I did.
The committee did great. We met several times and made progress meeting after meeting. As tempted as I was to impose my ideas and reject theirs, I held my peace and simply assisted in organizing their thoughts.
The end result was, well, o.k. The video we produced was an enhanced version of the first video that was published. In a sense, we simply produced a faster horse. Henry Ford once said:
“If I’d asked my customers what they wanted, they’d have said a faster horse.”
Henry Ford was revolutionary. Steve Jobs is revolutionary. These two leaders have demonstrated that the customer is not always right. That often times the customer needs to be given a product they didn’t know they wanted. Effective leaders see first and see far.
Consider this next time you find yourself leading a group into the development of something new. Collaboration is good, but be ware of simply delivering a faster horse.
By the way, the first video published didn’t win. Neither did we. The winning video was completely different. Wow, shocking, right?.
