The Opportunity Clinic - 28 Tactics for Managing Your Business in a Recession Part 9 of 28 The dichotomous thinking trap

Many novel or even seasoned serial entrepreneurs get struck in what I call the dichotomous thinking trap. The noun dichotomy is defined by Webster’s dictionary as:

1: a division into two especially mutually exclusive or contradictory groups or entities <the dichotomy between theory and practice> ; also : the process or practice of making such a division <dichotomy of the population into two opposed classes>

2: the phase of the moon or an inferior planet in which half its disk appears illuminated

3 a: bifurcation; ; especially : repeated bifurcation (as of a plant's stem) b: a system of branching in which the main axis forks repeatedly into two branches c: branching of an ancestral line into two equal diverging branches

4: something with seemingly contradictory qualities <it's a dichotomy, this opulent Ritz-style luxury in a place that fronts on a boat harbor — Jean T. Barrett>

Dichotomous thinking is narrow thinking that divides the world, your problems or solutions into only two opposing camps: Yes/No; right/wrong; black/white; Ying / Jang; in-source/ outsource etc. Mainly that’s how the brain works in creating information patterns. Many people don’t even bother to think beyond these self-imposed, artificial, cognitive boundaries to come up with a third, forth or fifth option.

Here’s a case study of one Canadian business that broke free of the dichotomous thinking trap (source:  from the Opportunity Clinic^TM   workshop notes)

There’s in-sourcing and outsourcing that most business people consider when they ponder the strategic decision-Do I make things internally or let some else do it? And then they stop thinking at this point, because no other options seem obvious. But what about another angle- I call it “tethered or conditional outsourcing”

"In the late eighties, before the advent of ATM’s and the Internet, a Markham-Ontario based engineering services firm, called  Tertec  had designed a (telephone) networked robotic self standing video tape store system (VideoStar Video Machines) that could not only dispense video tapes, but also take them back ready for rental again, with complete automatic inventory management and a ton of other features that were state-of-the-art back then. 

To produce these video machine kiosks, Tertec had, in the early Nineties a relatively big staff –over 40 people with tools and machinery to process metal, such as lathes, milling machines and the like. This video machine technology business was then sold to a German company called Konzepta GmbH, who also had offices in Calgary, because of their other interests in oil and real estate.   As part of the deal, Tertec built them a plant in Calgary to manufacture these video machine kiosks.

Then they were faced with a problem-the overhead of managing the now-redundant Toronto

mechanical staff, as well as paying them and keeping them busy became a big burden on the firm.  Rather than just lay them off, Tertec tried another creative option-they offered the mechanical staff some of the machines for free, so that they could start their own businesses with the proviso that Tertec would receive priority, if they came to them with jobs and orders.  Some of the more entrepreneurial employees jumped at the chance to start their own spin-off business and agreed to the conditions.  This became a win-win situation for all parties concerned as everybody benefited from the deal. 

The moral of the story:

Rather than laying off people, companies should assist their staff to get jobs elsewhere or help them start their own businesses (with similar conditions that Tertec offered its staff), so that when needed, these people would be ready to help the companies as subcontractors or outsourced workers.  This would mitigate the pain of job losses and enrich the lives of the people as well as benefit the companies in the long run.  As Stelco used to say “Our product is steel but our strength is our people”!

 

Walter Derzko

Smart Economy

Toronto

Author of the soon-to-be-released book: Hard Times Golden Opportunities.. about opportunity recognition in a recession/ depression features 45 opportunity scenarios.

 

Related posts in this series:

The Opportunity Clinic - 28 Tactics for Managing Your Business in a Recession Part 8 of 28 Industry Architecture Opportunities

The Opportunity Clinic - 28 Tactics for managing your business in a recession Part 7 of 28  Geopolitical Opportunities;

The Opportunity Clinic; 28 Tactics for managing your Business in a recession Part 6 of 28 What's in your Recession Playbook?

The Opportunity Clinic; 28 Tactics for Managing your Business in a Recession Part 5 of 28 Category Killer Innovation-India's $10 laptop

The Opportunity Clinic - 28 Tactics for Managing Your Business in a Recession Part 4 of 28 “Left Behind “Opportunities- Go Green & Go Slow

The Opportunity Clinic - 28 Tactics for Managing Your Business in a Recession Part 3 of 28 Design Opportunities- Hope or Nostalgia

The Opportunity Clinic - 28 Tactics for Managing Your Business in a Recession Part 2 of 28 Innovation or Efficiency?

The Opportunity Clinic - 28 Tactics for Managing Your Business (& surviving and thriving) in a Recession Part 1of 28

Related Posts over that past year:

·         Opportunity Recognition in Difficult Times

·         Recession - Proofing your Business - Spotting & Designing Opportunities in a Downturn

·         Recession - Proofing your Business - Spotting & Designing Opportunities in a Downturn – June 25, 2008, Ontario College of Art Design, Toronto, ON

·         Recession-Proofing your Business-Strategies and Tactics for smoother sailing in turbulent seas

·         Master Class in Opportunity Recognition for entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs> May 30th 2008> University of Toronto

·         Turning Misery into Opportunity

·         Vacuum leaves pullout opportunities;

·         How will baby boomers handle the recession? Zoomers, Doomers, Gloomers, Opportuneurs

·         Recession, Depression and Shortages as Opportunities

·         Restructuring of American Business-A New Business Model?

·         Using New Yorker Cartoons for Opportunity Recognition /Sense-making & Pattern Recognition

·         Text Mining for S&T Scouting, Foresight and Opportunity Recognition

·         The Opportunity Clinic-swapping opportunity scenarios 08-002

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Walter Derzko -"Changing the world, one idea at a time"©

Author of the soon-to-be-released book: Hard Times Golden Opportunities.. about opportunity recognition in a recession/ depression features 45 opportunity scenarios.

Expert, Consultant and Keynote Speaker on Emerging Smart Technologies, Innovation, Strategic Foresight, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

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