What will you do differently in 2020? Today I’ll help you muse on that, hoping to inspire your innate curiosity for self and your business.
As we come to the end of the year, rather than wait until January to think about this, I recommend you start thinking about this now. Take some quiet time to consider this before you take a break over the holiday season, then allow it to sit mulling in your subconscious until you are ready to bring it forth again.
I’ll write around New Year’s Day (as I did last year) about how to create this as a simple one-page contextual strategy for the year but for now, two simple thoughts to help you “cogitate”, on a) pausing to assess, b) innovating and iterating your business, c) the power of being curious when it comes to willingness and desire to change.
The year is over. Be open to change in 2020
Recently I wrote a post that started:
What happens when you set a vision and then a mission for a business and you achieve them? Do you carry on, or do you pause, assess, then create new ones starting from the foundation of where you are now? Or, do you simply carry on without a “reset”, even though the job is complete?
2019 is coming to a close, it will soon be over. Before you launch into 2020, take time to pause and assess before simply doing more of the same.
That post is a reference post with two case studies to remind us to not be complacent, to pause and assess whether the right course of action is to continue as is or to do things differently.
Innovation. Doing things differently.
In another earlier post, I gave my definition of innovation as:
“Innovation is simply doing things differently and doing different things”
My question for you today is what will you do differently in 2020?
Again, this second prior post, on innovation, gives a case study to support you in looking at our business differently for 2020.
Curiosity and change
Business often grasps for tools and processes to almost force them to do this, such as the widespread use of terms and processes such as “Lean” and “Agile”. Going further back, at source to this is hunger and curiosity to grow, to always be improving. Curious leaders, organisastions with a culture of curiosity, I tend to find they need to lean a lot less on ideas such as lean or agile, innovation, iteration, willingness to change, these are in their DNA!
In science, mathematics and computer science (back when I was a young student), a key term was iteration. Each time you go around to do something again (to iterate), look to how you can improve on each iteration.
So, one more past post to reference, on: “Curiosity, a key to Leadership“.
In that fairly wide-ranging post, I finish with an extract that Hunter S. Thompson wrote to a friend (WHEN HE WAS 22. the maturity of curiosity!):
“Let’s assume that you think you have a choice of eight paths to follow (all pre-defined paths, of course). And let’s assume that you can’t see any real purpose in any of the eight. THEN— and here is the essence of all I’ve said— you MUST FIND A NINTH PATH.”
Hunter S. Thompson
Your “homework”
Do take a few minutes to review the linked posts and to give this some thought for yourself, then come back and revisit around the turn of the year.