{"id":28865,"date":"2014-02-24T19:34:41","date_gmt":"2014-02-25T00:34:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/balancedscorecard.org\/staging\/?p=28865"},"modified":"2022-08-23T11:01:07","modified_gmt":"2022-08-23T15:01:07","slug":"in-search-of-the-canadian-hippo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/balancedscorecard.org\/staging\/blog\/in-search-of-the-canadian-hippo\/","title":{"rendered":"In Search of the Canadian Hippo"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n\"\"During the years we lived in Canada, my family became fond of Canadian Heritage Moments.\u00a0 These were sixty-second vignettes that depicted formative moments in Canadian history.<\/p>\n

One of my favorites has the intrepid French explorer Jacques Cartier arriving in the valley of the St. Lawrence River in the year 1534 and encountering a group of Iroquois. The leader of the tribe approaches the French party and invites them to visit his nearby village.\u00a0 The viewer, having the benefit of English subtitles, learns that the word for village in Iroquois is \u201ckanata.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cartier turns to the priest on his right and asks \u201cWhat is he saying, father?\u201d The priest hesitates a moment and then announces confidently: \u201cHe is saying that the name of this nation is Canada!\u201d\u00a0 A helpful and obviously intelligent young man steps up behind Cartier and says \u201cBegging your pardon, sir, but he\u2019s inviting you to visit him in his village. Canada is his word for village.\u201d The priest asserts his authority, dismissing the young man, and off they go.\u00a0 And the rest is history!<\/p>\n

Enjoy the story at\u00a0http:\/\/tinyurl.com\/k84fsdk<\/a><\/p>\n

When exploring new territory, it\u2019s best to draw as much as possible on the collective intelligence of the group when assessing the situation. This is truer than ever in our organizations, and at least as true as it was in Cartier\u2019s time.\u00a0 Cartier, after all, thought he was in Asia.<\/p>\n

One of the biggest mistakes we make in strategic planning is assuming that the future will be more or less like the past. It won\u2019t. It\u2019s critical to articulate \u2013 and question \u2013 our assumptions about the environment we operate in, in terms of what our customers value, what our competition is offering, and the impacts of big forces like technology and the economy.<\/p>\n

Many of our organizational ways derive from a simpler time, when we could rely on the experience of people who\u2019d been around longer for an accurate assessment of the situation. In one of my classes, a student raised his hand and said \u201cThat\u2019s what we call the HiPPO principle.\u00a0 It means that decisions are made based on the Highest Paid Person\u2019s Opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n

In rapidly changing times, making strategic assessments and decisions based on what worked in the past may prove short sighted. A well-managed system for tracking and reporting strategic metrics is the compass that leaders and staff throughout the organization can use to learn from experience and align their actions in pursuit of better value for customers.<\/p>\n

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