Are You Open To Thinking Outside The Box?

As a leader, you need to be continuously learning and open to using unusual opportunities to validate your positions and expand your horizons. A leader needs to be open to thinking outside the box to see how present circumstances benefit them short or long term.

A number of years ago, we launched a new digital business customer portal for my former telecom employer. It was receiving industry acclaims for numerous initiatives including “Best Use of Technology” for one of our newly launched apps. This was in the pre-smartphone days, so digital portal and application launches were web-based rather than the app store launches occurring today.

One of our new portal apps was a mapping application that allowed business customers to see their telecom network view ---- globally. It enabled them to see a Network Operations Center view, identify where any alarms might be occurring, view any outstanding orders, and initiate / status a trouble ticket from the map. None of our competitors had similar capabilities. One of our government contracts --- the Dept of the Navy --- was using it as their Global Network Operations visual display in their Network Operations Center.

I need to add that this was also pre-Google map and pre-IOS map. Customers requiring underlying mapping software utilized one of several third-party software vendors. These vendors primarily supported the package delivery corporations and the independent device navigation users (hikers, anglers, off-road cyclists / skiers, etc.).

Shortly after this ground-breaking portal network map application launch, I got a call one afternoon from my boss who wanted me to join him in his conference room upstairs to listen to a vendor pitch. He did not indicate which vendor before I arrived for the session.

I was flabbergasted when I got into the room and learned that the vendor was a different mapping software vendor than the one which we had used on our recently launched, award-winning network map application. The meeting ran for about an hour and a half. I was polite with the vendor, even though I was furious about the waste of my time. Furious is understating my internal mood. My blood was boiling.

Nevertheless, my boss and I peppered the vendor with questions. “What features were on their roadmap for the coming year? How many software releases did they have annually? How was their software priced? Did they support an Enterprise License? With an Enterprise license, did they have restrictions on exposing the map functionality to internal and external registered customers (as opposed to unregistered internet customers). Where did they think the mapping market direction was in the next 3 – 5 years?”

BTW --- no one had any conception that Smartphones, Google Map, IOS Map, or App Store (IOS and Android) apps were even on the very short-term horizon.

It was a good vendor session, as vendor sessions go. We got good, valuable, specific information. The vendor left the room.

I asked my boss to stay behind for a minute.

I had only one question. “What was that all about?” I asked irately. “We just spent a considerable amount of time and money launching our new mapping app ---- with all its customization on top of another vendor’s underlying mapping software. We had done an exhaustive evaluation of all the vendors with mapping software and the one we used currently was the best in class. We just wasted and hour and a half of your and my time!”

Furthermore, I stated, “I really do not want to go back to Bill (not his real name, but our business partner, the owner of the business digital platform, and our funder) and tell him that we changed our mind regarding our third party vendor and he will need to authorize another round of funding for our award winning app to support a swap out of something that was not broken!”

His answer was simple but changed my mindset completely for the rest of my career.                                                                                           

He said, “Whenever a vendor calls and wants to do a pitch to me, I always accept. I want to understand their product and its current capabilities. Where do they believe the market is going? What is on their current roadmap? Would they customize features for us if we need something not on their current roadmap or would they include it as a later future roadmap deliverable? What is their cost structure? The answers to those questions help me to validate what we are doing and the direction that we are taking with the initiatives that we are delivering.”

“Besides, you know me, I would consider making a change if I could save a dime!”

Honestly, I had never considered that. Listening to a competitive vendor’s pitch was like getting a consultant’s marketing analysis, competitive analysis, and strategy view for free! It was genius.

Again, it forever changed my mindset.

Through the subsequent years, I took the same approach. I never turned down a vendor pitch. It helped me to validate what we were doing and the direction we were heading with our products.

I never fully bought into making a change if it only saved a dime! Though cost differential always remained a driver for me to make a change. LOL!

Afterwards, I always coached my teams to do the same. Though I added a caveat for them before the sessions with a reminder of my boss’ statement, “I want to understand about their product, its current capabilities, where they believe the market is going, what their roadmap looks like, what their cost structure is? It helps me to validate what we are doing and the direction that we are taking with the initiatives that we are delivering.”

Those words changed all our mindsets and made sitting in a non-fruitful vendor pitch sessions (they did occur occasionally) more palatable.

Are you open to thinking outside the box? Sometimes the greatest learning comes from the most unexpected experience. However, you must be open to learning. If I had gone into that session with my boss and that vendor with a closed mindset, I would have missed what really became a career-changing moment.

Leaders need to be open to learning --- anywhere, anytime, any circumstance. You never know how it might benefit you later.

You need to be open to thinking outside the box.