Adaptovate

Being able to understand the perspective of a different point of view is one of the most important tools in your arsenal in any business relationship, the real question is how does one learn how to do it . In philosophy, there is a wonderful example of point of view, and I will term it the ill-conceived ' golden rule '. (Note I am not trying to be anti-religious, or anti any particular religion in these comments, just purely showing a differing point of view). The 'Golden Rule' exists in various forms in a number of religions. When I was taught the golden rule, it was something like 'do unto others as you would have others do unto you'. It is really quite a great concept, until you think of it from an other's point of view, and then it would clearly become something like 'do unto others as an other would have others do unto them'. Bit of a tongue twister, however I will try to explain with an example, perhaps a rather extreme example ... If you w...

The 'So What' test is a marketing test that I picked up in business school. Interestingly enough, it did not strike me as anything special at the time, however I find that I use it more and more. In a similar way to using the words 'only if' in order to focus your excuses for not doing something in to a single object that you can knock over, the 'So What' test focuses your thoughts on the relevance of a topic. In marketing, quite often you come up with ideas about distribution or a branding concept, or something that defines a moment in time for the thing you are marketing. The 'So What' test in meant to be the recalcitrant person in the back of the room that literally says, "Yeah that is great and all, but So What !!!" If you cannot answer why your idea is relevant to this imaginary guy, then there is probably something wrong with your idea. Now obviously, anyone can be unhelpful, and the idea is not to make the standard of the 'So What...