FIND YOUR FOCUS

A few years ago, I was sitting in a ballroom at one of Accra’s glitzy hotels watching a group of West African entrepreneurs graduate from a globally-recognized development program. It was encouraging to see such diverse and successful business leaders from Ghana, Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, and Nigeria take a transformational step forward in their entrepreneurship journey. And so I was completely taken aback when one of the young invited guests seated next to me declared his burning desire to go to the USA, because in his view if he was given the chance to be in America, he would be a successful and wealthy businessman.

The conversation reminded me of Martin Luther King’s quote that “The difference between a dreamer and a visionary is that a dreamer has his eyes closed and a visionary has his eyes open”. How we perceive the world around us strongly influences the way we act. But when you’re a young African who has never traveled, it is easy to read about the success stories of Warren Buffett, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg, and somewhere you become myopic, believing Brand USA is where entrepreneurial success resides.

As much as I was chiding my young dinner companion about Africa’s endless opportunities, it was hard to convince him to see what I see about our continent. The truth is that everyone has a blind spot. Not just figuratively, but literally. It doesn’t matter how perfect your eyesight is – you always have a blank area in your field of vision. That’s just how your eyes work. The problem is that you don’t know your blind spot is there, because your brain fills in the gap. It puts in what you expect to see.

Wandering through life with your brain filling in the visual blanks is one thing. But blind spots are really bad for business. There’s a classic mistake that many entrepreneurs make – they get totally captivated by their big idea. They spend so many hours looking so closely at their idea that they become shortsighted. Unless they step away and see their idea through the customer or end-user’s eyes, there is a good chance they will create a solution nobody wants.

The other big blind spot for business people is known as confirmation bias. You think everyone agrees with you, and you are always impressed when business articles or news shows confirm the things you believe or say. What you don’t realize is that you have a natural bias to be drawn to the kinds of people and media who believe what you believe, and see the world in the same way.

The way we deal with our human blind spots is also a great way to deal with business blind spots. Car manufacturers have added small details such as blind spot mirrors and back-up warning systems to vehicles. Road authorities place giant blind zone mirrors or signs at dangerous intersections to alert drivers. Within your company, you can use customer satisfaction surveys to gather information about your business’s “blind spots” by asking your regular clients what you can do better or do differently – or even stop doing altogether.

And to make sure you aren’t always seeing just what you want to see, why don’t you find someone with an opposing view and measure up against their perceptions? We are already used to doing it with our politics. How about using a different lens to see your corporate venture?

For an easy point of contrast, try looking at your private business from a public sector viewpoint – are you delivering a higher standard? If you are a large corporation, imagine your business from an SME vantage to see what has been adversely affected by scaling up. Or visit a similar-sized company in a different industry sector and make some comparisons. And for the fastest change in perspective, take a look at your products and services through the eyes of the people not interested in buying from you!

Lack of focus can be detrimental to your business. Too little focus and you spend time chasing multiple products and dreams without success. Too much focus and you stand the chance of limiting your services and missing out on opportunities to grow. Just as with your eyesight, where you should be having regular eye checks every two to three years, it’s wise to test what is in or out of focus in your business model every few years too.

If there has ever been a good year to test out your company's focus, it would be this one: hindsight is 2020!

Article written by guest writer Janine de Nysschen.