I bought this little painting because of a book I’m writing. (credit: Lynette Pitzolu Art)
[Author’s note]: This is part one of a short three part ‘nugget narrative’ on a fascinating business opportunity. See parts 2 and 3, here:
- Part 2 (2-minute read): The Elephant in the Room: Why Manufacturing Data is Under Pressure
- Part 3 (4-minute read): Before Data Can Be Useful, It Has to Be Trusted
The book is called RELEVANCE, and it’s about people who choose to work on things that actually matter, often before those things announce themselves as urgent. When I saw this blue elephant, with the quiet reminder to stay relevant, it stopped me. I didn’t overthink it. I just knew it belonged with my work.
Because elephants have always mattered more than peanuts.
Peanuts Keep You Busy – Elephants Change the Game
In sales, and especially in manufacturing, there’s no shortage of peanuts.
Small optimizations. Minor upgrades. Incremental improvements that feel productive and look good on a Salesforce dashboard. They keep teams busy. They keep conversations safe.
But they rarely change anything fundamental.
Elephants are different.
Elephants are the big, uncomfortable problems that don’t arrive neatly labeled. The ones that sit just outside the agenda because they’re hard to name, harder to own, and easy to postpone.
When Urgency Hasn’t Arrived – Yet
One of the hardest disciplines in sales is learning to apply urgency before urgency is obvious. My grandfather taught me this long ago.
- Not panic.
- Not pressure.
- Just a steady, purposeful pace.
In manufacturing, many of the most important challenges don’t announce themselves as broken. They sound like:
- “These systems have always been dark.”
- “That’s just how the plant works.”
- “We’ll deal with it later.”
That’s peanut language.
But the elephant is usually hiding right there.
The Elephant Is Forming
Something structural is happening beneath the surface. Three forces, once separate, are now converging on the same underlying operational data:
- AI and machine learning, which require timely, trustworthy data to improve efficiency and reliability.
- ESG and sustainability regulations, especially Scope 3 reporting, are moving from estimates to auditable, plant-level evidence.
- Cybersecurity and resilience requirements are tightening how and whether data can safely leave industrial environments.
Individually, each pressure is manageable. Together, they point to a much larger question, one most organizations haven’t fully named yet.
The data at the center of all three was never designed for this moment. It was built to run machines, not satisfy auditors, train models, or withstand modern threat landscapes. That mismatch doesn’t feel urgent, until suddenly it is.
That’s an elephant.
Keeping Your Eyes Up
Elephants don’t announce themselves with alarms. They change the ground slowly, until walking around them is no longer an option.
This painting is a daily reminder to lift my eyes. To resist the comfort of peanuts. To work on problems that matter before everyone agrees they matter.
Next, I want to come back to that elephant in the room, the one forming at the intersection of operations, regulation, and trust.
For now, the reminder stands:
- Chase elephants.
- Leave the peanuts behind
