Exit the bubble

There’s a limit to what can be accomplished in a bubble.

A bubble is any form of isolation or time spent, work done removed from the action – whether it takes the form of a remote office, ivory tower, limited face time or even a one-person show attempting to do all themselves. Bubble-induced false perceptions quickly fall away without the bubble barrier, when reality is so visible, so undeniable.

Even though the entire landscape is best viewed from afar, the reality of what’s happening on a granular level, which explains the bigger picture, is best seen up close and personal. There’s nothing like direct contact with the customer, the product, factory workers, the warehouse, the selling environment, the end-use environment, to shatter assumptions and false beliefs and to answer questions and explain the what (is actually happening) and why (are these things happening) behind the how (can we improve).

Nothing wrong with quiet time, thinking time, personal time in your own bubble. In fact, this individual time is critical in order to recharge, to cut through the noise, to sort out and process the data points, to filter the critical few from the distraction of the many and irrelevant, and to connect the dots and imagine possibilities...but this must be balanced with time spent outside the bubble in order to see, hear and learn what's actually going on, and to gather those vital points of reference so the best path forward can be planned and delivered.