Recently, I wrote about the ‘balancing act’ based on the story of the Buddha. I started observing the concept of balance to a greater detail when I received the story from Prof Mankad, and here are few pointers in this continued blog.
What I have realized in my studies lately is, the “engineerish thinking” (numbers all the time all the way) is not the end in itself. Marketing has long been a function requiring creative thinking. Long time back – before my joining my MBA – someone (talking to me) made a remark – ‘marketing is a bottomless pit, you do not know the return on investment etc etc. Now in the era of result orientation everything is being measured and therefore the results are key for marketing departments too’. Here again creativity should not take toll on numbers. Thus, a balance has to be made between being creative and being critical for return on investment.
Second thing what came to my mind with reference to marketing, and in general to all of us, was perceptions. While communicating to outside world e.g. marketing companies try to play on ’emotional’ hot button of target audience yet want to be analytical of the effect of the marketing efforts. Again the balancing act comes into play based on the perspective inside out Vs outside in.
In case of say leading teams, one needs to balance. Leader needs to involve and empower his team at the same time guide when anyone needs help (I wrote about this earlier in blog Growing and becoming leaders). Thus, a balance has to be made between giving power to take decision and taking control of situations when required. I had few things in my mind regarding the same in the language of TRIZ. In TRIZ there is a principle called separation on condition (giving control and taking control based on condition) for such cases. I would write more on application of TRIZ in marketing and sales in some other blog.
Changing gears, in personal life we manage relationships. At times these relationships come to such a point that we need to act as a funambulist (tightrope walker) to sail through the rough patch of managing the relation. So, balancing act continues throughout the life.
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