There is no spoon – Doing it right this time.

Whenever an industry or company is in trouble the talk invariably goes to how to provide Rehab. We talk about the re-birth, re-growth and the re-storation of a badly injured economy. And it is re-freshing, re-juvenating, and re-newing to discuss efforts that will allow an industry, province and even a country to regain, restore and recapture that which has been lost. Re-ally. I mean it.

Industry experts and politicians use the “RE” emphasis a lot when talking about plans, goals and aspirations. In most cases the goal is to somehow return, reset or restart to a previous point in the game. Rehab sports experts usually understand that reversal of an injury is not generally possible. In addiction rehab we recognize that addiction is never cured but constantly in remission. They believe that with the right effort the functionality lost can be regained or at least compensated for. This nuance, however, is often lost on the general population.

“We will make it as good as it was before – just like new” goes the mantra. It is like rebuilding a home that is lost to fire. A phoenix rising from the ashes. We have the plans. We have a clear memory of what it looked like. It is always easier to simply replace what was lost as close as possible than to build something entirely new. We default to what is comfortable.

But is that what we need? Is that what we really want? If what we had was so damn good then why is it gone? How did it get damaged in the first place? And what has changed in the interim? Is the past the best place to go to deal with present and future needs?

In a recent issue Oilfield Pulse Magazine asked “what does the industry need to do to get back to full strength and achieve prosperity once again?” You’ve been hired as the oil & gas ‘physiotherapist’ (or psychologist if you prefer) and it’s your job to get the industry healthy and help keep it that way.

But as I look around at the still smouldering ashes of our recently wrecked economy I cannot help marvel at the opportunity it affords to now do things differently. To envision and meet future needs and perhaps even to do it right this time.

One example of this philosophy which leaps to mind is the company DIRTT – Doing It Right This Time. DIRTT is a leading technology-driven manufacturer of highly customized interiors combining new and innovative 3D design software with unimagined modular design solutions. DIRTT has become highly profitable and successful challenging the status quo at every opportunity. They do really cool things at their office and plant. The same can be said for other highly successful mavericks such as Richard Branson, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg.

Given the celebrity iconic status of these industry giants it is shocking how rarely we ask ourselves, in any rebirth or regrowth situation, “what can be do differently this time”. Why is this not the very first question we ask?

All successful innovation over the past 50 years has come from one single source. Finding a new way to meet an existing need. It is never about the product. It is always about what problem the product solves. For decades the record industry was entrenched with the challenge of producing better records. They then quickly went extinct when someone had a better answer for the question “how can we reproduce better music”. While Steve Jobs was not the first to ask that question he was eventually able to provide an industry defining answer.

There is the commonly quoted urban legend about NASA spending millions of dollars to invent a pen that can write in space while the Russians simply used a pencil. The point of the story is to focus on the need – to communicate information – rather than the medium – a pen – which is the foundation of all out of the box thinking stories.

In reality Paul Fisher invented the “space pen” to solve a number of real world pen challenges so that pens could write upside down, underwater, and in extreme temperatures. NASA (and the Russian Space Agency) became customers (at about $6 per pen) because the device was a better alternative to the pencils they were using which released wood and graphite particles into a zero G environment and were a fire hazard. But at the end of the day it is simply a better pen not a genre changing revelation.

The out of box example I use most often with students and clients is the 9 dot test. Using a pen (or pencil) the task is to place your instrument on any of the 9 dots and with 4 straight continuous lines draw a line through all 9 dots. That means once you start you cannot lift your pen off the paper and all the lines must be straight.

It seems like a simple task but quickly becomes obvious that it is far more challenging than at first glance. It can be done but requires a change of thinking and perception. Often the first thing we need to do when thinking outside the box is to realize that there is no box in the first place. Or in Matrixese – there is no spoon. Bending the spoon is not the goal. It is simply the outcome.

The most fundamental exercise in change management or management of any kind is to always be asking yourself – “What service does this company perform? What problem do we solve?” These are the questions that constantly reconnect you with your clients. When you find that you are answering that question with a product description then chances are your company or industry if getting ready to die out.

The “Oil and Gas Industry” is a dangerous misnomer because it focuses on the product produced to create mobility, electricity, heat, containers, lubricants and dozens of other uses. As long as “oil” continues to be the most cost effective answer to solving real world needs then it will remain viable.

To fully recuperate and heal the “energy” industry must take a hard long look at what the are producing, how, and with what resources. Is being bigger really being better? Chances are the Alberta economy is going to look very different in 20 years. To really survive it must diversify and look at value added distribution of natural resources.

The survivors in that new economy will be the companies that today are visualizong what those future needs are going to be and how to serve them. The dinosaurs will be the companies that spend massive resources to recapture a way of life that no longer exists or is no longer relevant. In the world of guns building a better bow and arrow is simply not the best long term strategy for success.

There is no question that Alberta has suffered. Both collectively and individually. We were counting on oil staying at $100. We speculated on what we would do with all the money when it reached $150. We counted on the Conservative party to always be in power. Intellectually we understood that it could go a different direction – God knows we have seen it often enough – but viscerally, in our guts, that never really resonates with our herd mentality. And then, while we were busy making other plans, life happened.

Its like people who continually rebuild their homes in the path of tornadoes much to the shock and disdain of people who have never experienced such events. Or what happened in New York City a dozen years ago after a rash of random shootings when companies created Kevlar products for kids – Bullet proof coats and school bags to protect children from drive by shootings on the way to and from school. In what world are these ever better solutions than simply moving to someplace safer?

Human beings are very much creatures of habit and comfort zones. Every MBA program in the world talks about innovation, early adopters, trends, paradigm shift, as if they are new ideas and not older than Gutenberg. And yet most businesses seem stuck in neutral.

"What is it that our company does?"

"What problem do we solve?"

"What solution do we offer?"

To have a better economy with stronger companies we are going to need better answers to those questions. Although it is easy to answer questions with 20/20 hindsight it is amazing how easily predictable most challenges are ahead of time if we simply practice the mantra of frequently asking these questions out loud with the expectation of getting answers.

Change is not always easy but it is always necessary and it will always be certain. Change will either happen through us or to us. We will either lead the parade, be part of the pack or in the back sweeping up after the horses. The single best predictor of successful solutions is the quality of the questions being asked. What questions are your company asking?

Steve Chapman

Moyo Inc