Tuesdays with Boni
June 4, 2008 by bluebonnet-elf
Tuesdays with Boni - our young, hotshot business professor whose brilliance is drawn from some well so deep we couldn’t dig - always give us something to look forward to. From demented souls to walking sunshines in 7 weeks? Not bad… Will jot down his what-not’s (Average of 6 per meeting. Right, Keats? Haha!) so we won’t forget.
What-not No. 1: Blue Ocean Strategy. In a sea of black and white cows, a purple cow will stand out. Chances are, in time, all the black and white cows will make themselves purple too. With all the cows now purple (this is called “the red ocean”) what will the purple cow do? Will it assert its “purpleness?” EEEEHHHH… Wrong answer! The purple cow should become green so that he’ll be a green cow in a sea of purple (and the ocean becomes blue again). How did all the colors get into the picture? Don’t ask me – I also don’t know the answer. The marketing majors know better.
Moral of the story – or the what-not: Differentiate and attract new market.
What-not No. 2: Leap-Frog (For Ray, it’s a Quantum Leap). When faced with a problem, what should be done? Automatic answer? Solve it! Errr… Right, but something is missing. Going back to the blue ocean strategy, you are in a sea of problem solvers – the black and white cows. How do you become the purple cow? Make that leap frog (or again, the quantum leap). Step back, look at the problem in a wider perspective, and make THE MOVE that will bring the situation to a higher level. There should be that magic to it that everything would seem to fall into its proper place – but on a higher ground. You become the green cow now by being not just the problem solver but the strategic thinker (TSING! Magic! ).
Moral of the what-not: See opportunities for growth in problems. (Nice, optimistic view…)
What-not No. 3: The Acid Test. And so you’ve made that leap frog. Case solved? Not yet. Let’s create more problems and subject THE MOVE to an acid test. What will the enemies do to retaliate? When they become gold, how do we steal the thunder – or the shimmer? Have we made the leap long and high enough that we’ve transformed into that shining, glittering green that no gold can match? (Mali pa rin… we should be glittering-blue- that-no-gold- can-match, Ateneo nga eh… Kala mo ha! May butas pa rin paper mo, uy! )
Moral of the what-not: Don’t be complacent. Set stretch-goals.
