Difference equals beauty!

                                                                                                  “Beauty is seen in what is beautiful”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

     Quite often, we encounter a negative reaction from people to something they haven’t come across before. It’s much more comfortable when your surroundings are familiar and unchanging. The same people, the same objects, the same books and movies. In a stable, unchanging world, we need stable and unchanging reactions. And if we’ve already adapted to this world, become accustomed to it, then any deviation from the norm, any difference, will initially be met with resistance.

     However, it’s hard to argue with the fact that if nothing ever changed, if tomorrow was exactly the same as today and yesterday, most likely we would still be nothing more than a soup of primitive cells and amino acids.

     We perceive as beautiful that which we like, which suits us, which brings a sense of satisfaction, joy, warmth, and extra energy. We want to repeat beautiful things, to be around beauty, to possess it, to be like it.

     My good friend Yuri works as a manager in a large manufacturing company. He is responsible for production planning. He has 10 employees reporting to him, and the company employs more than 4,000 people. His motto is: “Everything must be anticipated.” The job is complex and requires attention, meticulousness, analytical skills, and the ability to work with large amounts of data. Any change requires recalculating a huge number of figures. Some processes last up to six months. Whenever we meet, no matter how the conversation starts, sooner or later he brings up problems at work. I have some experience in solving production issues, and I have repeatedly offered my help. But how can someone from the outside—who is not familiar with the essence of what’s happening, doesn’t know all the subtle specifics, and isn’t immersed in this work 24/7—really help? Meeting to chat is one thing, but seeking advice is probably not.

     That’s how it was at our last meeting too. We started talking about our athletes’ success at the Olympics, and ended up discovering that, at Yuri’s manufacturing facility, the sales targets weren’t met. Since production went according to plan, huge stocks of finished goods piled up, freezing up working capital, which naturally led to a cash gap and delays in settlements with counterparties. And since the credit line was fully used up and the overdraft maxed out, some suppliers who weren’t paid on time blocked further deliveries. And how can you do proper planning in such conditions! How can you do a quality job! It just doesn’t look good!

     Remembering that Yuri doesn’t take direct professional advice from me, I decided to try and help by asking clarifying (unpacking) questions.

Me: — Do you see that the problem arose due to a planning mistake made by your team?

Yuri: — Of course not. It’s all because of sales, they’re uncontrollable, they can never say exactly how much and what they need. It’s impossible to make accurate forecasts with them.

Me: — And when did sales give their last forecast?

Yuri: — Same as all departments, in December last year, before the budgeting process. We follow a clear business planning process, and the yearly plan is the law. It does not change! Everyone must fulfill their commitments.

Me: — So the last information from sales about their plans was more than half a year ago?

Yuri: — Yes.

Me: — How accurate was their forecast according to the results of the months that have already passed?

Yuri: — Accurate? Not at all. They never once met the plan. They started out lagging behind by ‘-10%’ in January, and by now they’ve slipped all the way to ‘-35%’.

Me: — And how do they explain their losses?

Yuri: — I didn’t really ask, but I heard that some new tech-savvy competitor appeared, offering a more advanced equivalent, and it’s also 25% cheaper than ours.

Me: — I suppose you must have responded in some way to the competitor’s appearance?

Yuri: — Not really, competitors have appeared before, but it never led to significant losses. We thought it was just sales not doing enough with their clients.

Me: — So, if the competitor’s sales led to such significant losses and triggered a chain of negative consequences that affected the entire company, does that mean this situation is different from the previous ones?

Yuri: — Seems like it. We’ve never had anything like this before.

Me: — As I understand it now, your company faced the need to change a number of established processes in risk assessment and budget planning? After all, if, for example, you had a process for identifying and assessing competitive risks, according to which any competitor who takes more than 10% of your sales requires an immediate response—both in sales and in planning—then today’s situation might not have happened at all?

Yuri: — Looks like you’re right! We got too confident in our strength and stability, stopped noticing anything that differed from the usual picture. It turns out we simply ignored the information that was leading us to the need to change something.

Me: — I’m very glad, Yura, that you’ve come to this conclusion yourself. I hope your management will listen to you. And you’ll be able to find solutions for an adequate response and for regaining your market positions, as well as normalizing your business indicators.

Yuri: — I think I’ll arrange a meeting with them right now. We have some excellent functional improvements, and our margin allows us to do aggressive pricing, and we can also afford to buy out this competitor. Sorry, gotta run. Differences need to be noticed, taken into account, and used. Thank you for the conversation!

     We are all different, with different experiences, beliefs, competencies, and values. Yuri and I are different. We look at the world around us and see the same things differently. Someone is traveling in a train compartment, while their neighbor is on their way to their dream. Someone sees a wooden table, while someone else imagines the forest where a sprawling oak once stood. The ability to see, understand, and use differences to your advantage expands your worldview. It allows you to see things closer, understand them more deeply, and avoid annoying mistakes. We should make use of the experience of those who have already gained it. They, too, put in a lot of effort before they acquired it. We need to be able not to ignore or reject what we do not yet understand or what feels unfamiliar, but to see the beauty in it!

     Move from being an unconscious consumer of information flows to a conscious and critical perception of the real world.

Good luck!

The 3S team wishes you profound Self-Development,

successful Self-Realization, and

genuine Self-Identification!