I love spreadsheets. I couldn’t run a business (or my life) without them.
But big strategic decisions and actions require more than spreadsheets. There’s another half to the equation.
You need to know it makes business sense in the columns and rows and cells. But you need to turn that business sense into a genuine connection with the market and make it a moment they feel.
This requires living in your market. Among your colleagues, customers, and partners. You’ve got to know how the spreadsheet logic will translate into market logic – into a feeling, a movement, that they value and can participate in.
This knowledge rarely effects the big decisions you make, but it absolutely should impact how and when you make and communicate those decisions, and be a major part of the smaller decisions and actions along the way.
Making business sense is not enough. You’ve got to make it make sense sense too.