Back in sunny (well dark actually) North Canterbury after a couple of days in Napier.
I’ve been doing some consultancy work through designindustry for FPG, a world leader in retail cabinet and store improvement solutions. This is a real New Zealand success story, employing almost 200 workers and selling value-added products on a world stage.
What is really refreshing for me, coming as I do from a viewpoint that New Zealand business needs to look both inwardly and outwardly for innovation, both in terms of their products and their businesses, is that FPG embraces the development of its people.
From attendance at Icehouse programmes, to implementations as diverse as TOC to Lean Manufacturing, FPG looks outwards to improve inwards.
Sometimes these solutions don’t work, that is no reason for business to be introspective, rather it is reason to explore further to find a good fit. The work I was doing was around the areas of “visioning”, imagineering” and “design startegising”, all very conceptual and esoteric. It was very refreshing to find such a responsive and open-minded organisation.
Kudos FPG!
Ben, Do you use words or pictures for your visioning? Since a vision is” a picture of the future” – I have only used pictures for the past 23 years. This results in a more open mindedness about “What does the meen for you?”
What lessons have you learned from visioning?
mike