Looking through the wrong end of the telescope

Focus is an ingredient in the bedrock of good marketing strategy.  

STP (Segment, Target, Position) is the action.  It’s a method of shutting out noise, distractions, flashing neon signs that attempt to woo your attention away from where it’s required.

That said, all focus with zero periphery is dangerous.  

You can miss things.  The beauty in the margins and beyond.  

It can stifle the process of vision, ideation and creativity.

There’s an analogy I learned long ago that helps me to maintain a healthy balance of both, and it starts with a Christmas story.  

When I was a small boy, around 7 or 8, my Pa (which is what we called my grandfather) gave me a telescope for Christmas. 

It was a very simple, straight through kind of one, in shiny gloss black with chrome and black trim.  It was amazing and it was mine.

I’d seen them used on TV and in movies, but never seen or used one in real life.  

Sitting next to my Pa while I tore the packaging into a million strips to get at it, I immediately and excitedly put it straight up to my eyeball and gazed through it, towards a window to the outside.  

Almost immediately I was aware that something was wrong. 

Everything looked far away.   

Not out of focus, but small and hard to make out.  It took everything I could see with my own eyes and then squeezed it into the small dot of lens I was looking through.  Nothing like I’d seen how they work in the movies.

I think I probably then looked up at my Pa, obviously confused.  He chuckled softly, took the telescope gently from my hands, turned it around and quietly said that I was looking through the wrong end.

He then trained me a little more, showed me how to scope with my naked eye, which part of the world I wanted to focus in on, then to look through the telescope, zoom in on and sharpen my view of that spot.

I wasn’t embarrassed and the patient coaching of my dear old Pa had a lot to do with this.  It was an easy mistake to make.  

I simply didn’t know how to use one.  

As I said, I’d seen others use them but never really taken any notice that there was an end for each of the view and your eye.

I was only two steps up the learning ladder (conscious incompetence) and needed to get to three.

Eventually I did, fairly quickly at that and went on to enjoy all that this fantastic new tool had to offer.

Do you see metaphors in this story for approaching life and work?

First, it needed to be taught because it isn’t an automatic talent. 

Some education and training was needed, which qualified the skill, use of the tool and the technique to have it fulfil its purpose.

A pinch of failure helped as well.  Mistakes and negative feedback are lighthouses that signal something is wrong and a change of course is needed.

In a work context, my own Marketing achievements come to mind.  That is the skills, tools and techniques, along with how they apply, need to be taught following which the experience of success (or failure) are the only things that provide force of movement up the learning steps to Mastery.

Second, when it comes to where to turn attention, the concept of focus and sacrifice, one of my well-worn mantras, enters the frame.

See, the main purpose of a telescope is to zoom in on what you want to fill your lens with and examine more closely.  You use it to block out the periphery and focus in closely on your target.

Once again, as a metaphor for marketing strategy, the kind that homes in on and reaches into the hearts and minds of desired audiences, revealed by insight, with a targeted scope that only focus and sacrifice can provide.

With that being said, and in a broader sense, an occasional look through the wrong end of the telescope is a good thing.  

It expands your field of vision, enriches your view and the scope of what you can intake.

In the context of uncovering new insights and innovations, being open and flexible to changes in markets, new methods that markets use to access what you’re offering, even turning off to it and signalling that you need to change course, an eye on the whole picture is critically important.

Right at the start of all this though is you (and I), and when it comes to personal life, values and attitudes, the concept of looking through the wrong end of a telescope is one worth understanding.

To this day, I continue to look through the wrong end, even though my Pa, all those years ago, showed me not to.  

Often.

Especially around this time of year, where the passing of one to another is on us, and one reflects on the past and plans (or at the very least, envisages) the future, it’s particularly relevant.

That’s because it fuels my curiosity, interests, creativity and insight.

Presents new goals and aspirations.  

If I never looked through the wrong end, I wouldn’t see outside the margins of focus, at what more I want to imagine, know and grow amongst to enrich and motivate my own personal journey. 

Life would get boring.

There’s a great quote by Dr. Seuss (you know, Cat In The Hat, Green Eggs and Ham) about looking through the wrong end of a telescope in the context of fantasy and creativity (which can be substituted for anything that fits with what to widen your own field of vision towards), and I reckon that’s a subject he’s well qualified to comment on:

 “I like nonsense.  It wakes up the brain cells.  Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living.  It’s a way of looking through the wrong end of a telescope.  Which is what I do and that enables me to laugh at life’s realities”.

Sure, focus is essential to home in on and set up a solution, though when it comes to new ideas, they’re best seen through the wrong end of a telescope.

So in wishing all of my friends, connections, colleagues, past, present and future a Merry Christmas, and as 2019 looms large, I also wish you plenty of time looking through the wrong end of the telescope.

* David is a highly accomplished senior marketing executive with over 15 years experience leading the creation, design and management of integrated brand, marketing and communications strategy. 

With experience in verticals and brands that include consumer products and services (retail and B2B), automotive, motorsport, transportation and entertainment, David can claim to a strong record of achievement as a strategically-focused marketing team leader.

Invite, Entertain, Interact, Experience, Engage, Motivate is David's mark and the ties that bind his MO for delivering marketing success.

Visit davidturney.com.au