Someone recently gave me an amazing business analogy, using Wile E Coyote. As surprising as that may seem, I just had to share it.
We all know how each of Mr. Coyote's attempts end. A "Super Genius" idea invariably goes wrong and our favorite antagonist gets injured. What is really interesting, is what he does next. More often than not the coyote tries something different.
As a result he lives in a world of perpetual experimentation with new ideas hoping each will help him achieve his goal. What he doesn't do, is spend time understanding what went wrong and improve the design of his contraption.
Wile E. Coyote almost always, immediately, assumes the idea was the problem, not the execution. Unfortunately, this approach is something I'm sure you have seen, I've run into it in my career too. It sounds like "We tried that once years ago and it didn't work", and with that, the idea is never re investigated.
We all know practice makes perfect in many area, like music, art, sports... golf. So why do we give up so quickly in the area of our business?
I've seen this problem often in applying technology, like CRM, to a business. The technology gets implemented, it fails to deliver the original lofty goals, and immediately it's explained away as something it isn't. Sometimes it's blamed on the tool, "We picked the wrong CRM", sometimes it's blamed on the situation, "Our industry isn't really the right one for this type of approach, we are more relationship based".
The truth is many companies are successful with idea and technology implementations, and many road runners, I'm sure, do get caught by coyotes.
Don't give up! It is possible!
A good idea is exactly that, Good and an Idea. Execution is something that takes time, practice, continuous focus and sometimes some experienced help.
What implementation of a new idea would you like to see succeed?