“It's really hard to read the label on a jar when you're inside the jar.”
I’ve heard a lot of people use this line, and it perfectly captures why looking at your own business objectively is really hard sometimes.
When we sit down with teams to talk through their why and their AI roadmaps, this is what we keep bumping into.
You don’t usually need someone to invent your goals for you - you’ve already got those. You need someone who can bring a critical eye and help you apply the technology in front of you, and figure out what you actually want it to do for you.
That’s where having someone who can combine business and technical experience becomes crucial. If you have that internally, first off, that’s rare. But if you have that, awesome.
An objective third party can really help accelerate that process and help you skip some of those first fails by posing tough upfront questions like: “Okay, this sounds like a good idea. We’re automating something people say is painful, but does it really matter?”
Asking those questions in a non-judgmental, non-emotional way really helps things move faster. It can even bypass some of the internal politics that tend to get in the way.
The person who can really understand what leadership is saying - “here’s where we’re trying to go” - and then help map out the steps that will actually deliver on that vision… that’s what you need.
Sometimes you need someone standing outside the jar, reading the label back to you.