Never underestimate the importance of think time, especially as a company leader.ĭon’t get me wrong, answering these questions may require more money or resources than you have right now. That’s why you must step back and take the time to work “on” your business. The point here isn’t to do all these items, but rather to develop a business mindset that keeps a focus on:įiguring out innovative answers is hard to do when you spend your days “in” your business. What is the status of your market? Are you a mature industry where costs rule or an innovative sector, needing to move quickly into new frontiers?.Have you looked at your competitors recently? (Are they all doing the “flop” and you are still using the scissors kick?) Do you hold people accountable for progress against those goals?.Do you pay attention to Important items and not just the Urgent ( Covey quadrants)?.Have your benefits kept up with the demands of the incoming workforce?ĭo you have performance measures (what is the height of the bar you plan to jump)?.Have you adapted to the needs of a multi-generational workforce?.Have your personnel policies and procedures kept up with the times (legal and generational)? Have you identified waste and downtime and set up a plan to reduce them?.Is the production flow as efficient as it can be?.Are your machines capable of meeting the specifications of your customers?.Does your staffing assure the best quality and quantity delivery of your product?.When was the last time you improved your production capabilities? What was the latest product enhancement you introduced?.Have you explored new markets or means of penetrating existing markets?.Are you on the right distribution channels?.When is the last time you tried something new in your markets? Are you the innovator in your industry or doing the same old thing? A few business innovation questions to ask yourself: So, what business lesson do we learn from the sport of high jumping? Are you making the same moves over and over, but not making progress? Sometimes we work very hard at improving our scissors kick when we should instead invent the next Fosbury Flop. Athletes realized it was worth looking a little funny to perfect their technique. She used it to become the first North American woman to clear 6 ft in the high jump.)Īll records since the introduction of the Fosbury Flop, including the standing (1993) high jump record at 8’ ½” held by Cuban athlete Javier Sotomayor, used the flop method. (As a side note here, Canadian athlete Debbie Brill developed a similar technique known as the Brill Bend. The move allows the jumper to run with more speed, arching their back to keep the center of gravity at or below the bar. He wasn’t concerned about looking good-just getting over the bar.Īs one journalist described it, Fosbury looked “like a guy who was falling off a truck.” His method featured a midair rotation whereby the jumper arched their back, kicking their legs out, and landing on their back on the other side of the bar. What made the difference was Dick Fosbury was willing to seem weird.
He found he couldn’t compete with the scissors method and developed his own technique to beat the competition. In 1968, Dick Fosbury became famous for inventing a “new” style of high jumping. That was the last time the scissors method was used to break a world record. While the style of jump is somewhat dependent on height (or so I thought when I did high jump), this classic scissors method led to a world record jump of 7’ 8 ¼” in 1978. This method had been in use since the beginning of record-keeping in 1912. This method involves running at the bar and turning to clear it taking off on one foot and landing in a standing position on the other side of the bar. Before the 1968 Olympics, all high jumpers used the scissors or straddle kick to clear the bar. Let’s talk briefly about the art of high jumping. Are you wondering what on earth you could learn from these two athletic events? Plenty! Business Lessons in Innovation from The Fosbury Flop (a.k.a. Today, there are two sports where you can learn powerful lessons about the way you think of your business: high jumping and basketball. Anyone who’s read Harvey Penick’s golf-based philosophies or Vince Lombardi’s insights on teamwork knows there are plenty of business lessons in sports. Throughout sports history, there are many great pieces of wisdom.
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