Business Rogaining

Rogaining is the sport of long distance cross-country navigation lasting as long as 24 hours for champions. Teamwork, endurance, competition and an appreciation for the environment are features of the sport, which involve route planning and navigation between checkpoints using maps and a compass. Checkpoints are scored differently depending on the level of difficulty in reaching them, and teams select strategies to earn points based on the skill level of its members. The team with the most points wins.

The rules of Rogaining are relevant to a firm’s drive for growth with maps,  compass, high value checkpoints, low value checkpoints. But according to a recent Booz & Company survey of 1,600 global executives, 81% admit to entertaining too many route plans. Brainstorming ignites a range of internal frenzies that produce waste and financial shortfalls. Human nature is such that those originally responsible for bringing failed initiatives to the company often double-down instead of changing course. 

Blueberry can attest to a similar situation in the food industry as chasing too many or the wrong opportunities cripple companies by:

• Not focusing enough on the costs of the chase
• Clinging or reverting to what's worked in the past in a different environment
• Building strategies on the opinions of those with limited scope

As a result, core processes become saturated by trying to do too much, ultimately missing the numbers and more:

• Innovation dissipates
• The organization's identity becomes blurry
• Sales processes fall out of sync with customer purchasing patterns
• Collaboration fails to cut across internal functions to capture new customers
• Frontline and even middle manager employees do not understand how their efforts contribute to the larger goals of the business
• Accuracy is secondary to activity and output

Unfortunately, organizations only reward doing, not avoiding. Refraining is not celebrated because its effects are invisible. But when revenues and other financials are stagnant or slipping, great leaders pull the plug and scale back, not ramp up, on priorities. They refuse to get caught up in head games about which new products to pursue, what new markets or segments to enter, how many more activities to focus on and track.

Practice the arts of abandoning and avoiding, not embracing and chasing. Stop, re-evaluate, re-focus and get your organization back on a narrower path. Those that do are three times more likely to earn above-average revenue growth than others according to the Booz survey.

Rogaining is more than an international sport. It’s a smart way of scoring big points in business.