Quick question: You get word that your organization will be receiving an unexpected sum of money. What do you do with it? It’s a question I like to ask myself from time to time. I’d be quite happy to actually have that unexpected infusion but that’s not the point.
For me, it is an exercise in prioritization. If you’re responsible for running and growing a business, most likely you’re thinking of the next step while still working on the one in front of you. Often, the answer to the next step is where to put your resources. If you had more resources than you have now, where would you put them? How would you get the most return? What virtuous cycle can you start with some additional capital? Does it need to be capital or can it be a personal action such as increasing your networking efforts?
The old saying, “when you point your finger at someone, there are four fingers pointing back at you,” is an example of what I call inverse creative thinking. You take what something isn’t and turn it into a springboard for what it could be. On days when all you can see are the downsides, the negatives and the shortfalls, positives can be shown in a uniquely stark light. When times are tough it’s an especially helpful question because you just may get some useful information out of it.
There are general categories to put things into such as equipment, personnel, investments, furniture, etc. For me? My mind is usually on increasing our quality and our reputation. That means we have projects on standby for when that cash finally does fall from the sky. I keep a list in my mind as I go through my days and weeks. (My business coach would implore me to put it on a calendar and make it measurable.) We don’t get all of the projects done. But after 12 years in business, I feel comfortable knowing that we’ve gotten to the right ones.
As the founder of a creative branding firm, you can probably guess that I enjoy dreaming of possibilities. As the Creative Director, responsible for helping talented designers and programmers perform their best, I know that it is difficult to come up with lofty ideas when one is dealing with minutia and details that threaten to eat any motivated person alive. That’s where the dreaming comes in and I come back to the question: what would you do with a bailout? It feels good just to think about it. If you were accustomed to getting an additional X amount of income each month, chances are it would become part of your normal operating budget and soon, likely to become mundane and part of the everyday grind again. A one-time drop from the sky however, is exciting and freeing and allows one’s mind to shake off the burden of the everyday and think about the next step with a freer mind, without restraint and without consequence.
That is a wonderful thing about daydreaming and about creativity. Of course, when it becomes useful is when you as a business executive take those dreams and make them into a reality. And isn’t that why you’re in business in the first place?
