Poorly tasting hummus doesn’t know how to fix itself; an analogy for business improvement
I could easily make the title of this blog “Why I shouldn’t cut my own hair” but I’ve been using the phrase “poorly-tasting hummus doesn’t know how to fix itself ” a lot recently [I should admit it’s a play on a quote I saw about another food product but I felt I had to Middle Eastern-ise it]
Let’s start with the photo above: It was sent to me by a friend from last weekend. We had been at a music festival and they had noticed something was askew with my hair — namely that the back was missing a rather large chunk.
How did this happen?
Well, ever since Covid struck I’ve been cutting my own hair. Yep, what started as an emergency measure because barbers were closed has become a thing of convenience and my skill levels have slowly been increasing…or so I thought.
As any good barber will tell you, tidying up the back of the head is a different level of skill and I have come to realise that even on a good day my abilities to shape the nape of my haircut is hit and miss at best (and my latest attempt was most definitely a miss).
So, what has this got to do with poor-tasting hummus?
Think back to the aforementioned hummus sitting in its jar; it’s like the dodgy haircut. No matter how hard it strains, it is likely oblivious to the fact that it is dodgy and even if it is aware, it simply can not make the changes to fix itself without external help.
Even the greatest hummus in the world can’t read it’s own label on the outside of the jar to find out what it’s current ingredients are, what it’s missing, when it might go off nor how it is recommended to be eaten (to name a few things you might find on a hummus label — trust me this analogy works for pretty much any food).
It is a skill to fix hummus (I should know because as a kid, my my mum would spend hours teaching me and my siblings how to fix poorly-tasting hummus as a proxy way to learn how to cook) and so I would never expect everyone to know how to do it, particularly not the hummus itself.
Let’s bring this back to work and what I do at Shiageto
Thanks to my friend’s intervention, I was reminded of the benefits of turning to external, professional help if you actually want to get things right.
In the same way that I can never hope to cut the back of my hair to the same level as a barber, businesses can never challenge their own strategic performance as well as a external, skilled professional can.
One of the fundamental roles that Shiageto provides to its clients is to help them improve their strategic success*; more often than not they simply don’t know how to assess their IQ, EQ and FQ levels, let alone understand how to improve them.
When I work with clients on their IQ, EQ and FQ, I point out that it is far easier for me to be able to spot their biases, their limitations and what they should work on because I am that external, skilled professional.
Sure, they can give it a go, but just like me and my hair, no matter how neat the front bit may be, the back will always be a wild west glaringly obvious to everyone else.
So, whilst I go off to reacquaint myself with my local barber, have a think where your business might value some external support to judge it’s own metaphorical hummus quality and to tidy up the back of your company/team’s metaphorical haircut.
*The Shiageto Equation outlines that Success = IQ x EQ x FQ
Faris is the CEO and Founder of Shiageto Consulting, an innovative consultancy that helps firms and individuals sharpen their effectiveness.
Success = IQ x EQ x FQ
