A few years ago, we hosted a "back to college" party, complete with foosball, beer pong, pop-a-shot, tacos at midnight, and a vintage Asteroids machine. For those of you who don't remember Asteroids, it was a wildly popular arcade game in which the player earned points for shooting asteroids (and remains of asteroids, which moved more quickly than whole asteroids) before the asteroids crushed the player. What made the game tricky was the infrequent, unpredictable appearance of flying saucers, which moved rapidly across the top of the screen, sometimes shooting at the player. These saucers were worth way more points than the asteroids, representing huge opportunity.
Only the best players can protect themselves from the asteroids, business as usual, while simultaneously being on the lookout for the high-opportunity saucers.
Those asteroids are like business as usual for most companies–increasing in frequency and difficult, but somewhat predictable. The saucers represent those unexpected, new opportunities, that can have tremendous value, but require the ability to see out of the corner of your eye, and focus simultaneously on two totally different patterns.
Do you have the skills in your organization to recognize the flying saucers? Or are you so busy focusing on the asteroids that you can't get the high points? We only see what we are looking for as this well-known psychological experiment
proves. Make sure you're looking for the big wins and not just business-as-usual.
