Head Of Nothing

I’ve had to take a week or so off to to other stuff but the search is back on.

… people have expressed an interest, but what’s interesting is that having expressed an interest I haven’t heard any more really. I’m wondering how that fits with the principle of working without contraints?

Another comment I’ve been given is: “The unconscious mind will encode and deliver on words in a way our conscious mind is not always aware of” and of course that’s true. Everything about communicating this role must create some sub-concious boundaries and barriers I guess.

That’s why I think the key thing is the person and their approach and not the role and it’s description. Time will tell.

I had a discussion on line with a few people about this project, one comment was that “To think beyond the norm in business and have the courage to push the boundaries has to be one of the Capabilites.”

I tend to think that the thoughts are innovative but that innovation is a norm in business so I’m not sure that I’m going beyond the norm.

Courage to push the boundaries is a key capability though. No doubt of that.

… that arose when discussing this included this statement….

However the overriding sense which presents itself to me at the thought of “nothing” is that this will create a vacuum - a space - like a blank canvas - and the absence of constraints will allow the external world to present itself into that void or onto that canvas.

That has set me thinking, there is something in this.

If this project is to move forward quickly I need to think about how to identify, and ask for the right person to carry the role. That’s what I’ll be thinking of over the next few days.

All this thinking suddenly has come to a conclusion.

The reality struck me squarely and firmly: to take business development, and the investment in time and resources through the use of another person or business, to grow my business along the same lines as it is already developing cannot deliver a step change in performance. Something radical, something different, something which I might think of, but, would be likely to remain unthought, constrained by my own history, is much more likely from the individual who is as unconstrained as I can make it.

My conviction that the role, and the experiment, was worth the investment became profoundly real in my mind.

In true Donald Rumsfeld fashion!

My business, as it stands, woks in a way that means that I know a significant amount about the way it operates, the people that it helps, its target market, its marketing and sales strategy, its ways of working and its processes. Of course, I should. It is after all my business.

If I impose those things on others then those very things constrain others from opening the doors to the very “Rumsfeld-ian” matters of the “unknown unknowns”.

Someone who is truly unconstrained will inevitably think of alternative strategies, alternative marketing, alternative routes to market, different target markets, different products, different services, different ways of working, and different approaches to most aspects of the business internally. That is what I want.

I concluded that it could constrain, but in general it was simply seeking the outcome. I decided to resolve that particular dichotomy later. It might after all be dependent on the individual I found for the role, rather than on the description of the role itself.

So, I have concluded that I wish to invest a reasonable sum of money in my business in order to help it grow. One way that I can do that is to find someone to fulfil a role with no constraints but to pay them for undertaking that role. The search is on….

I had determined that I did not intend to employ a Head of Nothing; rather I sought a collaborator, an associate, someone who would see “Head of Nothing” as a part of their portfolio and not their “job”. It wouldn’t be all that they did, and the other things they did would allow them to continue to innovate and develop and think about their role in my organisation in more depth. That seemed to fit, it enabled them to be unconstrained by the need to focus on one organisation so one significant constraint already was removed.

I also knew that I wasn’t in a position to invest enough in my business to provide an income for an individual working on a full time basis. However, some of what they deliver should of course develop and grow the business. I was, however, prepared to make an investment in the business in order to help the business to grow.

Immediately, I have a problem, I have constrained the role by defining it as a role which is intended to “help the business grow”. My question, to myself, became one of is that a constraint or is it a desired outcome?