Clients Say the Most Amazing Things: Enlisting Your Team to “Always Be Curious” About the Changing Business Landscape

November 13th, 2013
Written by: Elizabeth Richards

From time to time, TPO posts first-hand C-level business perspectives, excerpted from an ongoing series of conversations we have with our clients. This one is from the President of an Association focused on medical technology.

“Staying ahead of the curve and keeping an eye on our market landscape is very challenging. We have 35 staff, and a $10 million budget. I would kill to have somebody who could just do ongoing environmental scanning for me all the time. That would be an amazing thing to be able to afford to buy. Instead, I have to rely on my staff and the volunteers to be the eyes and ears of what’s going on out there, and be constantly asking questions. I think there’s a need for staff and leaders in an organization to be always curious and to have a learning environment. To constantly see that the organization has to learn from the members, learn from the environment, learn from other industries and try to piece it all together. ‘How are the changes that are going on in the rest of the world going to impact us?’ We read a lot of trend reports on what’s going on. We’re in the healthcare field. So, what’s going on with hospitals? What’s going on in the medical technology? What’s happening with innovation in healthcare? Trying to filter through all of that to see common threads from the different sources of information is something that we have to do. It’s hard to do, but we’re doing it.”