Hi There – Brian here
I was once doing an exercise as part of an executive coaching course in Sydney and had a sharp reminder of how unpleasant it is to think hard.
The leader had set class members a difficult task and smiled knowingly at us, saying that we will all need to ‘apply intense cognitive effort’ to complete the task in the allocated time.
In other words, you will need to ‘think very hard’ he chuckled.
True to his word, solving the challenge was hard work.
A recent review of the association between mental effort and negative affect confirmed what we all know deep down: we’re averse to thinking hard.
And unlikely to learn to enjoy it.
The study found that, overall, mental effort felt aversive in different types of tasks (e.g., tasks with and without feedback), in different types of populations (e.g., university-educated populations and non-university-educated populations), and on different continents.
The authors suggested that mental effort is inherently aversive.
The insight is that we must be purposeful in designing our institutions, programs and services to make it easy for the private sector to engage.
If it looks complicated, confusing or difficult, businesses will instinctively be averse to investing the time and effort required to figure out how to collaborate, invest or trade.
They will go elsewhere, where it takes less effort.
Like a leader looking at themselves first, institutions, programs, industry bodies and service businesses need to look hard at themselves first.
Are you easy to do business with?
It is sad (and frustrating!) to watch the endless opinion articles, reviews, reports, conferences and meetings lamenting how the private sector is not investing, participating and trading when there are potential opportunities.
It is especially evident when governments urge businesses to change their priorities.
A great example of this introspection is the endless narrative about the low level of two-way trade and investment between Australia and growing Asian economies like Indonesia.
Another is the frustration of industry bodies that have low and declining business membership.
Or a government trade or business development program that has disappointingly low business participation.
What is usually not confronted is the question of whether our institutions, programs and service organizations are easy to do business with.
I invite you to step back and observe what is working and why.
Consider the example of the Philippine government’s Anti-Red Tape Authority (ARTA). It was formed in 2018 to provide a single-entry point to resolve government constraints for investors.
The government took visible action to create a new institution with the mandate and authority to make it easier for businesses to invest in the country.
And new foreign investment is flowing.
Similarly, the UAE has centralized decisions through the Abu Dhabi Investment Office and India is trying to increase the ease of doing business.
For a business, it is less effort and risk to stick with those organizations and markets that are known and easy to work with.
You don’t only need a compelling value proposition to involve more businesses. You also need to reduce the burden on businesses to make it easy for them to engage.
It is one reason why you don’t see meaningful commercial traction from media spin, roadshows, conferences, reports and social media hype.
These are ‘push’ strategies.
What does work are intelligent strategies and tactics designed to make it easy for customers to work with your public or private institution, program or services organization.
These are demand or customer-oriented initiatives.
What are your thoughts?
Or are you unwilling to invest in the intense cognitive effort required to innovate and make it easier for your customers, clients and members?
Until next week.
Insights from others…
“The harder it is to do business with you, the greater the burden and costs you impose on your customer and, of course, the less competitive you become.” – Michael Hammer
“Congress, the press, and the bureaucracy too often focus on how much money or effort is spent, rather than whether the money or effort actually achieves the announced goal.” - Donald Rumsfeld
“It is the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) that those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.” — Charles Darwin