Excuse Me, Your Agenda’s Showing

The future arrives on our doorsteps every day as a new opportunity. So why is it that some of us seek to perpetuate the status quo when there is so much to gain from moving forward?

This is the story of a valuable lesson relearned. We recently met with the executives of a national association whose members are marketing organizations that sell travel-related products to the public. We have a service product that enables each of their members to understand customer-driven best practices, implement them and track their progress (rating) vs. the norm...something that currently isn’t being done.

So rather than market directly to each member, our thought was to work with the association and provide a new benefit to their members. All was good, except for the ratings part. They said: “Why would we want our members to compare themselves to one another?”

Our answer was pretty simple: They already do. Everyday, everywhere on the internet they are being reviewed and ranked. To make matters worse, the rankings and reviews are subjective and unreliable; where one person says 5-stars, another says 2-stars. By providing objective data and reviews as an alternative we can begin to balance the equation. But they politely declined. In the end, personal agendas were more compelling than actual progress. In this case, the individuals involved were at the peak of their careers - a few years from retirement.

In spite of clear benefits to their members, an agenda of change was not worth their personal risk. Is your personal agenda in line with your professional agenda?

Fig 1 Innovation