Reinvention Part 3: Research

Let’s wrap up this mini-series on reinvention.

I first asked you to look at your resume in a new light—not so much in terms of titles and positions but in terms of skills, passions, gifts, and success. Then I told you that reinvention is a two-sided coin. The second side is the need in the market or society as a whole. Remember this famous principle: “Find a need and fill it, find a hurt and heal it.”

Now, for the final step in this process, and I’m sorry to say it isn’t that exciting. It’s research.

My model for the kind of research I’m advocating is the Guinness Company. They had a global reputation for observing this principle: “consider long, act quickly.” They would research a possible new direction at length, sometimes for years. New inventions, stepping into new markets, revised benefits packages. Just about everything. Those looking on would sometimes wonder if Guinness was just dawdling or if perhaps they had even forgotten about a given project.

Then, all of a sudden, action! New directions were announced. Ground was broken. Bricks were being stacked. New initiatives were launched.

I’m urging this approach for you because research is often the step that most “reinventors” skip over. Most folks ponder themselves fairly well—their gifts, their skills, the meaning of their experience, their accolades. Most also do a pretty good job of identifying a niche in the market or a need in society. Yet then they tend to skip over the research stage.

Don’t be like them. This critical research phase should make you an expert in the arena you intend to step into. An associate of mine once said that your goal should be to know more than anyone else about the specific work you are about to do. It is a worthy goal and, as impossible as it seems, doable.

Do you remember the woman I mentioned to you in the last <em>Leading Thoughts</em>, the one who was an accountant but who then started a successful firm that provided personal assistants for high level female executives? I watched her conduct her research phase and it was masterful. By the time she was done, she knew the psychological profiles of elite executive women. She had files of expert studies. She also had charts detailing the training of most personal assistants in the United States. She developed financial analyses, conducted interviews with executives, and even asked to meet with the founders of firms that had failed. This woman knew more than she needed to know. I believe it has led to her success.

When I turned our firm toward the challenge of leadership crashes, I also did extensive research. I talked to other consultants. I met with the boards of firms that had endured nearly devastating leadership crashes. I even met with dozens of fallen leaders. This, combined with my knowledge of history and experience in counseling, allowed me to build an informed approach.

Hear me on this: You don’t just build success on a good idea. There are a lot of those in the world. You build reinvention success by knowing yourself and your market, yes, but then by knowing more details of the market, more about past failures, more tactics of success in your field than anyone else. Only then do you execute and execute well.

Ponder at length. Act quickly when you are ready. This is how the final stage of a reinvention is done.

So please do not get overly emotional or too much in a hurry and blow what might be a brilliant reinvention. Take time for each of the three phases I’ve described. Then, and only then, act! I want you to be successful and I know you can do it with wise counsel guiding you.