Last year I read a really great book called Freakonomics. For those of you who like an interesting spin on conventional topics, this is a must read. It is written by an economics lecturer at the University of Chicago together with a writer from the New York Times and follows a series of Blog postings that the two of them made back in 2003.
What makes the book both readable and so intellectually interesting is that they use economic theory and statistical analysis to consider such interesting topics such as:
§ Why do drug dealers live with their mothers?
§ How can your name affect how well you do in life?
§ What do estate agents and the Ku Klux Klan have in common?
So what’s the relevance of this as we go through our dreary lives here in the UK? Well I think the one thing I took from the book is that it is dangerous to take anything for granted and important to challenge the conventional thinking on issues. This is what they do in the book and I think too often, we just accept what we read and hear without challenging it.
In business, this is probably even more the case. Many successful businesses have been built on the premises of challenging the norm. Just think of Virgin and Easyjet as two examples of this. There are of course many more.
So next time you look at a situation, and decide how to proceed. Take another look; ask yourself if there is another way that a better result can be achieved.