Help to Grow: Management Course | Kingston University

The art of noticing in a business world

By Maliha Haider
March 18, 2024

Billy Beane, a baseball executive, who found remarkable success by bringing an unusual approach to winning baseball games. Wondered how he came up with his unconventional strategy to baseball team management that transformed the way baseball game world traditionally worked?

By paying attention to data analytics that others ignored.

To be able to lead a business using innovative approach requires one to become a ‘first-class noticer” as what Saul Bellow calls one – someone who disrupts the maddening circulation of business affair. Noticing is a vital skill for a business leader not to be consumed by the workings of running a business or leading a team. It is then, you experience what is already in front of you. It is then you are able to notice which previously seemed invisible and therefore a great possibility unattained.

So how can a business leader or a manager inculcate this art of noticing in their everyday business practices?

1- Listen deeply. You have an idea that you are sure of its success? Looking and listening is perhaps a first way forward. Listen to what others have to say, listen to what others have said about it before, listen to what hasn’t been said. Are you listening?

2- Be ready to fail. It is understandable to protect one’s business and one’s own credibility as a leader, but it is also a way to never succeed in areas you possibly could. Make allowances for innovation in your processes. Ideas you thought might not work, give them a chance.

3- Empathise. A problem that is not yours, put yourself at the front of it. How would you resolve it? A problem that is yours, how do you think others will resolve it? Remove your biases that come in the way to approach any problem.

Inculcating a habit of noticing, will connect you with unmatched possibilities, with right people who would become your rock and with a business that has an ability to navigate in difficult times.

To get more support on how to grow a business that is both stronger and sustainable, find out here:  (kingstonuniversitybusinesstraining.com)