Look

The value of thinking is grossly overrated. It's easy to get caught up in "thinking" through problems in business or ideas but the value and application is limited. You need to look. Inspect and observe facts, statistics, operations. Observe what is happening and how and then collect applicable information that you can use and do something about. Look at how your sales reps are acting and speaking on the phone. Look at how your stat charts are trending week to week and month to month. Look at how your delivery or production team is actually doing their tasks at hand and just stand by to observe while they work. Then based on things you observe, make notes on items that need to be corrected and improved. By doing this, you will spot problems, bugged areas and non-optimum operations in plain sight. Now with this information, you can act on it and have workable solutions not based on thought but on real world facts.

Stop trying to think you way through problems to arrive at a solution because I promise, you will never arrive. You need to look and practice spotting the problems through intelligent observation. Then apply what you have learned to address the problem with practical solutions.

Walk around and look daily at every area of the company to observe, take note and correct. Anytime you start "thinking" just switch over to looking and begin to observe and you will find that the solution will flush out every time.

- Robert Cornish
CEO, Richter10.2 Media Group