Want a bigger comfort zone?

I meet too many leaders who are struggling with technology in their business.

If you're to achieve impactful results, your first challenge is to understand your technology comfort zone.

If you've only had home runs, you may be putting too must trust in tech. If you've experienced a failed technology project, you may find it hard to shake the bad memories. And if you've only seen mediocre results, you're likely aiming too low.

Any investment has risk, and we're all inclined to gravitate to the areas we're most comfortable with. Some leaders embrace the risk of new technology, but most prefer to place their bets elsewhere. And that's a problem that leads to an unbalanced investment portfolio, skewed away from potent innovation.

A balanced portfolio begins with a balanced comfort zone. Which of these perspectives best describes how you feel about technology?

Skeptic: My first technology investment fell flat and every one since has been a disappointment. I have no appetite to repeat.

Avoider: I don't really understand enough about tech to judge the merits, and I rarely see a solid business case. Think I'll stick to hiring more people and investing in other assets.

Zealot: I'm convinced that technology is the future of my business. I get jazzed by new things and defer to a tech solution.

Balanced: I've known tech projects to run long and over budget, but I've had more wins than losses. I'll invest in a good business case, regardless of the technology component.

If you see yourself as Balanced, you're in good shape to pick the best investments. If you're elsewhere, try the exercise below to expand your comfort zone.

EXPAND YOUR COMFORT ZONE

Select the appropriate exercise to improve your confidence:

Skeptic—seek inspiration from others who have had better luck with technology. Call up people you know who have seen success and ask WHAT they did. Then list some simple, low risk, challenges in your business where you could take baby steps.

Avoider—if your fear is based on lack of experience, you probably know peers who have grown their business with technology. Reach out to them and ask HOW they did it. Keep a log of the successful techniques that you haven't tried.

Zealot—if you ALWAYS defer to technology solutions, list some tasks that are hard to automate, but that could be routed to a live person to handle the edge cases (Hint: most customer interactions fall into this category, simply because they are too precious to risk.)

Share your list with your team and see what ideas this generates. Send it to me at graham@primeFusion.ca and I'll give you some suggestions.

... and if you missed these related articles, go back and take another look:

Is it time for tech to be part of your brand?
Mistakes happen—just don’t blame the system
Why we need Business Technologists