Better than great.

I learnt an important lesson today.

I am currently developing a workshop for a client who's looking to overhaul a particular aspect of their service.  I have been interviewing stakeholders, determining where the company wants to be and ultimately, what they think they need to do to get there. 

I found myself compiling a list of the top 5 or 6 things that I'd heard, putting together a hit list to be checked off one by one.

Then I was challenged - and rightly so.

In hindsight - in this day and age it's fair to assume that every company worth its salt can focus its energies and be great at something.  But ultimately that shouldn't be why they speak to people like us.  Yes, our role is to understand the needs of the business and where they see it going, but it's then our job to take them out of their comfort zone - helping them to think in a manner far removed from their existing norms, their competitors and category expectations.

What if instead you re-framed the task as: 'how do we make them famous for it?'

With this as a goal, your competitive set becomes wider and the solutions you discover invariably better.