Pushing or pulling

 Corporate world requires you to think about strategies to achieve what you want.

There are mainly 2 strategies: push something forward and pull something(use the situation) forward.

In the first strategy, you are proactive. Maybe you have some leverage and you can use it. Maybe you have the authority to push a new policy and so on. Pushing when you are in a position of power is easy, and it is fast. There is no leadership in pushing. You just need to state what needs to be done and it shall be done.

Pulling, on the other hand, is an art. Art of waiting, a bit of chance involved as well. When you don’t have the authority, you need to leverage the situation. It is like a spaceship using the gravitation pull of planets to move forward. The challenge in this strategy is that your company or manager will never notice you for this opportunity, or the organization will never adopt the change.

Kodak was a successful company until it decided not to adopt the digital photography. Not that it didn’t do some attempts, but in reality, Kodak was always digital second.

Imagine you worked in the digital department and you see tons of potential. You might wait for senior managers to re-think the way the company is investing and prioritising, and you might have been right about it. But it never happened.

So this is the risk in pulling, unfortunately in the bigger percentage of time we all will be pulling and waiting for the right condition, technology and market disruption to arrive so we can benefit and jump on the train of success.