Where is the Arrow?

Did you know there is an arrow in the FedEx logo? Now that it has been pointed out, will you ever NOT see it?

This is an example used in Ric Merrifield’s Rethink: A Business Manifesto for Cutting Costs and Boosting Innovation to illustrate how changing your viewpoint is a necessary, but not sufficient, step to innovation.

His bottom-line advice, once you have figured out your Hedgehog; start with the small, safe projects. Tackling the part of the diagram that drives your profit is high-risk, if you make a mistake, it’ll be painful.

Rethinking how to decouple “what” you are doing from “how” you are doing it will tempt you to judge people/yourself for the waste you come to see with your new viewpoint. That’s not productive, guard against it. Let it go and move on.

Remember Hamlet’s idiom: “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

Is it a woman’s face? Or a saxophone player?