Through the Lens of an MBA
Achieving the Wow Factor: Get Back in Touch With That 8 Year Old Child
The Girl in The Pink Scarf
Issue date: 11/17/09 Section: News
I'm sure you must be terribly confused by the title of this article. What in the world does an 8-year-old child have to do with an MBA education?
Plenty, I say, plenty. Just as different disciplines have different critical factors of success, these come to light in distilling the essence of that discipline. Finance is all about trade-offs, getting the best value, structuring strategically, and using the most efficient capital methods. Marketing is all about understanding the customer and tailoring that message to best appeal to the desires of the customer. But what about Luxury?
Okay, fine. Luxury is not a field of discipline, per se, but it is an entire industry of multiple disciplines, all working together under the fine guise of implicit rules. These rules were debated and agreed upon, chastised, and praised, a week ago at the Luxury Lab's Innovation Forum.
I'm here to present some takeaways from the Forum that you can use as implicit rules in your arsenal of tools sitting in the relationship know-how toolkit.
First you have to close your eyes. (Silence). Shoot. That didn't really work did it? (Note to self: psychological exercise transmitted in print does not translate into executable exercise if participant is asked to close eyes). Try again: first, read the following all the way through and then close your eyes. Close your eyes and envision yourself as a child. Try to remember as far back as you can to the time when you first walked by the window display at Christmastime and saw the One. The absolute most perfect thing that you had to have. That toy. That doll. That thingamajig. Think about the excitement, the bliss, the intensity of IMUSTHAVEIT you felt.
Another exercise: fast forward to now. Think about the last time you felt that way: the got-to, need-to, totally-going-to-ballistic-if-i-don't feeling. When was the last time you thought that about anything? Yeah, you may be stuck with your eyes closed for a long time. Don't worry, think long and hard, but try to come up with the closest thing to it.
Plenty, I say, plenty. Just as different disciplines have different critical factors of success, these come to light in distilling the essence of that discipline. Finance is all about trade-offs, getting the best value, structuring strategically, and using the most efficient capital methods. Marketing is all about understanding the customer and tailoring that message to best appeal to the desires of the customer. But what about Luxury?
Okay, fine. Luxury is not a field of discipline, per se, but it is an entire industry of multiple disciplines, all working together under the fine guise of implicit rules. These rules were debated and agreed upon, chastised, and praised, a week ago at the Luxury Lab's Innovation Forum.
I'm here to present some takeaways from the Forum that you can use as implicit rules in your arsenal of tools sitting in the relationship know-how toolkit.
First you have to close your eyes. (Silence). Shoot. That didn't really work did it? (Note to self: psychological exercise transmitted in print does not translate into executable exercise if participant is asked to close eyes). Try again: first, read the following all the way through and then close your eyes. Close your eyes and envision yourself as a child. Try to remember as far back as you can to the time when you first walked by the window display at Christmastime and saw the One. The absolute most perfect thing that you had to have. That toy. That doll. That thingamajig. Think about the excitement, the bliss, the intensity of IMUSTHAVEIT you felt.
Another exercise: fast forward to now. Think about the last time you felt that way: the got-to, need-to, totally-going-to-ballistic-if-i-don't feeling. When was the last time you thought that about anything? Yeah, you may be stuck with your eyes closed for a long time. Don't worry, think long and hard, but try to come up with the closest thing to it.
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