20.06.2024

SUCCEEDING WITH A BLUE OCEAN STRATEGY

Purple is fashionable this year. But to succeed in your career, you need to choose the right one from the two colors that make it up - blue and red.

The correct one is blue. It gives the name of an economic strategy that will work for you if you plan to become a manager. You can successfully apply it in your being an employee.

The "red ocean" and "blue ocean" theory was developed by W. Chan Kim and René Mauborneau. The names describe economic situations.

With a little more imagination, you can imagine the situation in the red ocean - it is teeming with fish, the big ones or just the more predatory eat the small ones and blood gushes out.

The other ocean is not overcrowded, no one is biting and the water is calm blue.

This, of course, is a poetic image that the authors have invented to make their theory memorable - in no business and in no company are things completely calm. But the "lyrical hero" well illustrates the essence of the strategy.

In short, you have a much better chance of success if you choose to pursue a job where the competition is not fierce. In business, this means finding a niche market and creating a new product, for example. In your daily life, being an employee means to engage in an activity in which colleagues will not compete with you.

To do this, however, you need to get rid of myths imposed by corporate culture and harmful habits that you may have created yourself.

Teamwork is such a fashionable and cult-like principle that in many companies both bosses and subordinates at some point forget what it's like to work alone and show self-initiative. At the same time, sociological research has shown that more than half of employees hate collective work. And a large part do not have the necessary skills for it - it implies not only professional, but also social qualities. Teamwork is a lack of efficiency when it is within the power of one employee to do what is assigned to an entire group. But often, middle managers insure themselves by doing just that.

You will find yourself in a "blue ocean" if you apply to work alone. Naturally, you have to think carefully about whether it is within your power so that you don't fail. This is your chance to show your abilities without depending on your colleagues and without suffering negativity when one of them fails, either because he is incompetent, or because he is lazy.

It is only natural that after such success, you will be assigned more independent projects, receive a salary increase and climb the hierarchy.

The bad habit you have to get rid of in order to swim in the "blue ocean" is slacking off. Very often subordinates refrain from suggesting ideas because they know that all or at least most of the work of implementing them falls on the author. When you think about it, it's only natural that it should be, and that's exactly where your chance for career success lies.

Most people are content to just do tasks assigned by the boss. Thus, they find themselves in a "red ocean" with dozens or hundreds of other employees who do quite similar activities and bite each other to the bone in an effort to be noticed by the boss. No one will pay attention to you if you are like everyone else. Your new product is your idea of how to complete a given task so that the team or company gets a better result. When you make a reasonable offer, you will find yourself in a "blue ocean" among the few who not only want to develop in their profession, receive more money, occupy a higher position, but also take action to achieve their goals.

In addition to a proper understanding of your behavior, a plan is also needed. Come up with your personal "Blue Ocean" strategy, specify what to start with and what you plan to achieve by the end of July, for example. In any strategy, it's important to have smaller, faster-achieving goals within the long-term goal to keep yourself motivated by success.

Be prepared to find yourself in a "red ocean" at some point. No one can once and for all swim in the "blue ocean", because there are always colleagues who also move into it, and bloody competition begins. And you still have to look for blue depths. But you already know how the strategy works.