“Denial is more than just a river in Egypt”.
A favourite quote of mine. Startups are not the only ones who are at risk of delusional thinking and excessive self-belief when it comes to their product. Large enterprise customers can suffer from denial too.
The sales team isn’t working hard enough – they aren’t hungry.
Because, if the problem isn’t the sales team, then the problem sits with the product owner and the strategy team that came up with the product idea. And, obviously, that couldn’t happen.
It’s great to have passion and drive. Sometimes a founder can become blinkered by their passion. Some product owners in large enterprises suffer the same fate – especially when an idea is promoted out of the “brightly coloured bean bags” of the innovation department into the real world of the business.
There is a further risk when dealing with both internal and external consultants. There are various names for this risk: “the ugly baby”, “the cat on table” (Finland), “the elephant in the room” (Apparently this works in Sweden as well as English speaking countries), “the emperor’s new clothes”.
These are significant risks that consultants prefer to “dance around” rather than to address head on – for fear of getting fired for pointing out “home-truths’. Consultants would rather “put lipstick on the pig” than to point out that it’s the idea, the approach, the value proposition, the business model, the go to market strategy, the regulatory compliance approach – or anything else – is actually – unquestionable – a mud covered pig.
Yet – this is exactly the input that you need.
Where can a business leader find a strategic advisor and partner, unafraid to ask hard questions and present unpleasant data – while being equally happy to confirm and reaffirm good direction, sound process and risk-mitigated opportunity?
That’s where SER Team comes in.