Resourcefulness

As marketing managers and executives, we constantly have to be on the look out for new ideas and ways to be resourceful. Yet, is resourcefulness an inborn trait, or can it be honed? I believe that in the right environment, it can be sharpened, but yes, some people seem to have it and some people just can't seem to "connect beyond the dots".

Recently, a colleague wanted some brown paper to wrap up some news boards for a client. I had mentioned that we should use those "brown papers" to wrap up the board, meaning those large sized, inexpensive papers that are normally used to wrap items for storage and handling. The boards were left lying in the office for about a week and when I mentioned it may get dusty and dog eared, being left on the table for too long, my colleague said that we didn't have brown paper and asked if she should buy some. I was stunned. In my usual "think on feet" manner, I said for her to just use some large pieces of paper to the wrapping and if there were not, she could take some A3 papers, scotch-tape them together, and she should have be able to wrap the boards. I didn't expect her to take me literally!

You see, as we strive to fulfil our clients' demands of which, some seem impossible, it takes a some common sense, intuition and experience to be able to pull on the resources one has in order to bring projects to fruition. It would help if we each knew what were the tools at our disposal and in this instance, I am all for the "pack or seek in the office and learn what the office has" method. In larger organisations, items may be provided to us and if they're not, many people take it as the "status quo" and do without. I find it sad to see this mentality being filtered down the organisation and eventually a sense of apathy starts brewing. Is this the reason why we need "change agents"? People who simply have a "why not" mentality - people who will seek out solutions to problems instead of just letting be and who are able to push for changes to the norm?

I would like to see each team player in ActVentures responding positively to stimuli around them, and to see what we can do better, faster and think work through before executing them. If we just took 5 minutes to think through how this piece of work would fit into the bigger picture and the whole, we would be more productive, more effective and definitely more efficient in dealing with the tasks that come our way. Using resources at hand is a key factor in being efficient and living up to our slogan: "effective marketing solutions"