Workplace swaps

From skill swaps to workplace swaps. The idea behind these being for managers or employees to spend a day in another workplace to gain experience of a different kind of working environment or, indeed, different way of doing business.

Nice idea if you dare spend the time away from your own business, I hear a few of you whisper. And it is a risk to take. But if you chose to invest that time what might you learn? Anything from new perspectives on customer service to better ways of getting those customers to pay up on time. It might even lead you to review your entire business model.

While I've been working on new idea myself, it's rapidly become clear that benchmarking against similar businesses operating in the same arena will do little to raise my game above the level that the rest are playing at. Only by looking outside the sector and considering how to bring in insights from unrelated businesses has it become possible to see how to make a step change in delivering such a business.

If a workplace swap (or any other means of gaining that outside perspective) can help you generate new ideas to improve the way you do business that's got to be worth a small investment of time.

Any other ideas on how to gain new perspectives on your own business?