One Way, Different Paths

 

During my career as a manager, I was convinced that the core of business success is dedication towards your company. I was therefore, 100% dedicated to one activity and it was important that I did it better and better every day. I couldn’t help but notice the same type of message at other managers as well.

To have a successful strategy means following a single direction, by investing and concentrating on one exclusive career, business or path. In short, having a convergent approach.

However, the true success of several business people shows another approach – the one that follows the concept of success deriving from people’s ability to have a divergent thinking and to open towards more paths.

The well-known venture capitalist, Chuck Martin, had one simple advice for entrepreneurs all over the world: “Look at everything!” In other words, he encourages entrepreneurs to search for opportunities in the strangest places. This reveals one significant quality of an entrepreneur, the ability to connect different areas of business and develop a network of relationships to achieving goals. One such example for entrepreneurship is none other than the famous Walt Disney, who developed his career on various paths: producer, screenwriter, voice-actor, director, animator, entertainer and last, but not least, entrepreneur.

I can’t tell whether my observation is valid or not, but I can surely see how managers from multinational companies trust the convergent strategies, focusing on being good at one single thing; whereas entrepreneurs believe that divergence is the solution towards a successful business.

However, any organization needs convergence– different ways of achieving the same goal- as well as divergence – achieving the same goal from different sources.

Thus, a specialized manager will need to view different perspectives and sources that can help him achieve his goal, just as the entrepreneur needs to learn how to find different ways of achieving the same goal.

Mihai, the general Manager of an important marketing agency would have never gained this leadership position without his passion for photography. Through this activity, he could professionally complete the company’s promotional layouts, by applying the main rules from photography.

Usually, when we concentrate exclusively on one thing, we tend to have a limited view of the entire picture. The interdependence between convergence and divergence, professional and personal, known and unknown, can generate creative ways of taking action in any business.