Recently at gap intelligence we did an exercise to try and identify our personal hedgehogs. You are probably thinking, “Hedgehog?! Like the animal?”. Although yes, a hedgehog is technically a spiny mammal of the subfamily Erinaceinae, we at gap intelligence consider a hedgehog to be our driving force.
According to Jim Collins, author of the book Good to Great, the hedgehog concept is a term for “a strategic focus that winning organizations develop to guide their decision making, strategy execution, competency development, etc.” As a company, we use our hedgehog to define what we can be the best at and to guide our decision making.
So this spiny animal steering gap intelligence into focus inspired us to identify our own personal hedgehogs. After considering my passions, thinking about what I can be best at, and contemplating my personal economic engine (the 3 factors that together form a hedgehog), I came up with “Live-Be-Work Awesome.”
I know, I know – it’s not very specific and you may be wondering how I can potentially be the best at living, being, and working awesome because quite frankly, there are A LOT of awesome people out there. But for me it works. This little phrase drives me to be a better person. Allow me to explain.
Prior to truly discovering and writing out my hedgehog, three main goals/events/topics/ideas exposed themselves in my life.
1. Health – working out, eating right – ya know, the basics – and being consistent about it
2. Leadership – becoming a better leader in all aspects of life
3. Work – successfully developing and launching the latest and greatest version of our gapTCO tool
These three things basically sum up my recent focuses and the things that I currently spend the most time on.
So fast forward to a few weeks ago when I am staring my hedgehog in the face contemplating whether or not it was the correct phrase to filter my life around and bam! I realize that I am already living my hedgehog and have been for months! (Possibly even years, but we’ll stick with months for now). As stated above, my three driving forces right now are to LIVE a healthier life, BEcome a better leader, and WORK on developing out a new gapTCO MPS tool. And each of these things are pretty darn AWESOME if I can say so myself. You catchin’ what I’m throwin’?
Now I could go into detail on how I am accomplishing these goals, but I think most people have an idea of how you can live healthy (drink water, eat right, exercise, sleep – be consistent) and how you can become a better leader (take some great classes like our hosted gapMBA Program, the Panova Leadership course, and Savvy Women by Design, and put what you learn into practice). However, many of you readers may not know a lot about our upgraded gapTCO tool.
To summarize using my favorite word, our latest and greatest gapTCO tool is AWESOME. It’s even #awesome. It kicks butt. How so? Let me count the ways. With our gapTCO online TCO calculator and MPS tool, our clients can:
1. Assess a customer’s costs, decide which devices to manage and consolidate the fleet, optimize the print environment, and propose a solution
2. Manage ongoing cost optimization throughout the entire MPS engagement – continuing the relationship with the customer after the initial point of sale
3. Quickly and easily generate a proposal to articulate competitive positioning and value
4. Calculate Total Cost of Ownership of printer and copier-based devices
5. Evaluate head-to-head pricing and specification comparisons
Pretty cool, right? And the best part of the tool is that it is intuitive, dynamic, easy to use, and customizable to any printing environment. AND its backed by gap intelligence’s database of product and pricing information that is updated on a weekly basis.
This version update of gapTCO absolutely makes it through my personal filter that is my hedgehog and falls right in line with working awesome.
If you want to see exactly what I am talking about and would like a TCO demonstration, holler at me and I will gladly share with you the awesomeness.
Until then, sit back, relax, and ponder your own hedgehog. And hopefully your work and life fall in line with what you discover.
KTCO out! #livebeworkawesome
