Most founders will tell you that starting and growing a business is a wild ride full of many ups and downs. This statement does not adequately prepare you for the journey and torrent of decisions that you will be required to make along the way.
As a result of these challenges, you develop a unique set of insights about your business. This accumulation of insight does not come from the outside. It is instead a layered composition of learning and adaptation driven by what you believe to be best for your business.
But, do we fully leverage these valuable insights?
The incremental evolution of a business means that our processes are composed of small, typically in the moment, decisions. This continual focus on the immediate moment does not provide time to reflect on the impact a decision has on the rest of the business. Which often results in a collection of competing processes that pinball in our desired direction.
The best companies seem to work in concert to achieve their mission. But many times, in our own business, we run into areas that just get in the way. When a process is not aligned with the rest of the business friction develops between that process and the rest of the operation. This is when a decision has to be made. Do you push through the friction or remove the process entirely because it is not in line with the core focus of the business?
Over time the core focus of a business stays the same, but the way short-term goals are achieved can change dramatically. When experiencing growth you may find out that processes that worked for you yesterday do not meet your needs today. Attaching yourself to early insights and not updating them as your business scales can leave your business constantly responding “This is the way we have always done it”.
You fight hard to build up your insight but it can get lost in the messiness of operating a company. Many times you need another perspective to allow you to take a breath and look at your broader vision and reset where you currently stand on your path. It is not about handing down an outside model that instructs you on how to run your business, but instead, it is about helping you make the most out of the insights you have developed. This is what Encoded Insight aims to do. We call it Understanding Insight.