We at Sony are undeniably a technology company – that’s what we’ve been doing for the past 75 years. And we’re good at it. Nevion has the same DNA - writes Sales Director Olivier Bovis.
But we know from our own internal workings and from working with customers, that the best technologically led plans come to life and really deliver return on investment, only if and when there is a vision behind them. That vision is of course led by people. Not everyone has a fully-fledged vision of where they want their company, or indeed their life, to go. But what we do know, from studies and from our own experience, is that the people who do have a vision are the ones with a growth mindset.
Over 30 years ago, Carol Dweck and her colleagues became interested in students’ attitudes about failure. They noticed that some students rebounded while other students seemed devastated by even the smallest setbacks. After studying the behaviour of thousands of children, Dr Dweck coined the terms fixed mindset and growth mindset to describe the underlying beliefs people have about learning and intelligence. When students believe they can get smarter, they understand that effort makes them stronger. Therefore, they put in extra time and effort, leading to higher achievement.
That growth mindset is based on the belief that progress is possible and within reach and that it can be reached by embracing the opportunities that arise around us, rather than saying no, or fearing the changes they might bring about; changes to job roles, to competences, to roles and responsibilities, to ways of working, to outcomes and many more.
Media organisations are very often dependent on external events to incentivise them to change – there’s nothing like thriving in a crisis to overcome their risk adversity. And suppliers, manufacturers, although they might be proposing new ways of working and innovative solutions, know that they are mostly dependent on external factors to influence their customers towards change.
The media industry is in the midst of an existential crisis and while we know the risk adverse culture is not the only factor that has led to this situation, we also believe that shifting that culture towards one that embraces changes in a continuous way, will help resolve this.
The key to unlocking the situation is not another external crisis or another amazing technological advancement. It’s about changing the mindset, moving from conservative to constantly creative.
In the same way, the human brain can constantly take on new ideas and grow some areas of expertise while it shrinks others, almost instantaneously and certainly without any great visible external change, so is technology moving to a modular approach, based around scalability and agility without the need to ‘rewire’ everything from scratch. Technologies like cloud and IP are built on this premise.
Time to embrace the mindset, not only the tech. And we’re the ones saying it.
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