The Dots Are Irrelevant
I’m on the board of an exciting early-stage technology company. We’ve gotten to the point where we have some happy customers using our service daily and a waiting list of others eager to join them as we ramp up. Very exciting.
Today we had a board meeting to do some deep thinking about where we’re going and discuss a funding round we’re working on. I was anticipating an energetic and strategic discussion leading to some clear decisions.
Instead, the meeting rapidly became derailed by one of the member’s continuous drilling down on minor details and requesting irrelevant detailed information that doesn’t exist. Most of the information doesn’t exist because it is about things we have no current ideas about or ability to develop.
The agenda was ignored, time was wasted, and we were unable to discuss the important issues the CEO wanted and needed to be resolved. Very frustrating.
That one board member’s continuous pressing to crunch and crunch and crunch numbers rather than think strategically and creatively about our next steps brought to mind a quote from Steve Jobs that is sitting on my desk:
“You can’t connect the dots looking forward: you can only connect the dots looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”
Deep data analysis is useful in all kinds of situations. Except when it hems you in and keeps your mind from roaming free. Except when creative, imaginative thinking is needed to invent things that don’t exist and no one knows they need. In the case of our board meeting, it was deep data analysis which kept us from fulfilling the CEO’s request to think deeply about where our business is going and what we will look like. And how we can achieve this vision in the most efficient, effective, and profitable way.
There are no real guidelines for what we’re doing, no dots to connect. We’re building something new for a broad market with clearly defined and identified unfilled needs. We’ve demonstrably shown we’re on to something. We’ve rapidly gone from a local company to one with national reach, complete with customers lined up to buy our service.
And now we need to channel the gut feel of Jobs to help guide us forward.