Here are my thoughts on the connection between Quantum Leaps and collaborative efforts.
Hi everybody it's Denise Roberts! And in last week's vlog, I talked about the Quantum Leap that came for Nike when they entered into a transformational innovative contract with Michael Jordan. Now, I referenced the movie Air - which is streaming right now on Netflix - but the point of last week was that the CEO of Nike, Phil Knight, is a highly successful man.
At age 45 he has already got a billion-dollar organization. And they wanted to get into the basketball shoe market and they were looking for someone to be their spokesperson. And they approached Michael Jordan. Now the story fast forwards but it took the vision of someone else on Phil's team to make this deal. And it was such a Quantum Leap it literally transformed Nike. Within a year they had sold 25 times what they had projected that they would do.
But the point of my story was that Phil Knight wasn't going to get there by himself - it took collaborative efforts. And I ended it with that they're not the only company that experienced Quantum Leaps when they listened to someone else in their organization. This week I want to touch on Coca-Cola. The Coca-Cola story as many of us know started in 1886 with a man who created a formula whose name was John Pemberton. John's vision was that it was a medicinal product - it was to heal, he was a pharmacist. Well, John didn't live long enough and the formula got sold to Asa Chandler. Asa's vision was that this could be a soda fountain drink and proceeded to take it and move it in that direction. Now it was only being displayed in drugstores in Atlanta.
Asa was a brilliant marketer who created a coupon concept and literally, if you redeemed it you would get a free Coca-Cola. And eight and a half million coupons are redeemed. So now Coke is just spreading across the country. Now that was his vision and that's as far as he got it and then three men came to him and said "We want to bottle this." And he said "Bottle it? Why? I mean we're wildly successful as it is." And he couldn't quite see it, so they convinced him to give them the rights to bottle it for a dollar, they would give him some of the revenues back, and the rest is history. So that was their next Quantum Leap. And there are many, many more.
Again the point I'm trying to make is inside your own organization or around you are people who see something you can't see. Consider collaborating with them, consider implementing some of those ideas, and see if that is your next Quantum Leap and transformational piece. Because this is what I've seen over and over again.
You and I can only see so far. It's when we expand our thinking through other people's eyes that now we can start to transform.
Stay tuned, more to come on this concept of transformation.