Need to change? Maybe you need a Blue Ocean Strategy.
In my previous blog in this series, "How To Find Your Blue Ocean Strategy®: Step 1," I explained how Blue Ocean Strategy teaches business leaders to go where the profits and growth are and the competition isn’t—to literally make the competition irrelevant. Using this revolutionary way of approaching business growth, companies can successfully adapt to changing times by reconstructing the market space, creating demand (not just responding to it), and devising value innovation (not just adding value in an existing industry solution).
Now you're ready for the next step: how to go visual exploring.
What is visual exploring and how will it benefit me?
Visual exploration is at the core of Blue Ocean thinking (and right up my alley as a corporate anthropologist). What we “see and feel” helps us better “think” about the problems to be solved and the ways to understand what we are really doing. Words are fine but if you see something or hear somebody talking about a problem they're having, your brain is then freed up to say, “Aha, this might be an opportunity for us!”
There are many ways to go exploring. But let me begin with a strong caveat: One of the key rules of Blue Ocean Strategic thinking is “never outsource your eyes.” What I mean by that is, don't let someone else do your discovery work for you. Get out of your office and go searching for new ideas yourself.
So, how do you do it? Here are 5 guidelines to help you structure your efforts: