Success Strategies Today are Akin to Moving Forward While Balancing on a Large Rolling Ball.
Rolling in any direction in disrupted markets, leadership must have the fortitude to quickly adapt and move in the direction of your RESET strategy.
Skills required:
Adaptation, skill building, continuous learning, innovation, flexibility, and meaningful direction are all required to build resiliency for successful tomorrows.
Assets to apply:
Improve with Gender Diversity, combined with Environmental and Organizational Capital to create higher performance and sustainable success.
“Essential” is at the core of transforming organizations and client engagements. Spotlight Essential internally and externally, for the shortest, most sustainable route to success.
We can help you balance.
Habits of the Mind – Are You Applying the Correct Kinds of Thinking?
In the past 10 months, we have applied 2000-year wisdom, to carve out new holistic strategies for our client’s RESETS.
Sizing up “the” problem, we assist business leaders to shift from habits, apply the correct combination of thinking that creates valuable decisions. Important is, how to best interpret the problem and define the most accurate approach of, reasoning / skills to solve it.
Techne – Tools and methods to create something
Episteme – Go narrow, possibly arrive at an absolute, using data or science for, what cannot be other than what it is.
Phronesis – Apply multiple dimensions of informed perspective define, what could be other than what it is.
Our perspective is usually the balance in the equation for success. Thanks again Aristotle!
Has the Sky Stopped Falling?
Launch, Renew and Grow.
Clear Markers effective for Resilient Organizations: People-Centric culture of trust with technology acceleration woven into a strong network of internal community championing ethical, risk responsive, decentralized decision making that builds equally on the organization’s economic and the environment’s natural capital.
Risky is to believe, this will be the last Pandemic or Crisis we face.
Learn to live with a reoccurring crisis, instead of an illusion
Only a few months to decide which initiatives will drive future success. Divest and reallocate based on a clear assessment of optimal business potential.
Apply learnings in 2020 to your 2019 model, painting a more accurate forecast and better preparedness for 2021 and beyond. Call us, we can help.
Florence Wine Windows and Essential, As THE New Trend
As a business what can you offer to customers pummeled by Covid. Start by looking at two of the major drivers in consumer decision making today.
Hyperlocal / shorten the supply chain – Tweak your offering to move it through the Windows of opportunity easier, faster.
Essential / Cleanliness – How might your services or products translate into essentials for safety, or offset financial, physical, or emotional aspects of Covid trauma?
Refine your understanding of your new or potential customer. Then tell your adaptation story as it relates to the challenges these customers face. Retell the success stories in every engagement and ask for feedback – are the Stories strong, do they really resonate? Track reactions and apply ingenuity with new strategies.
JOY will positively impact the bottom line.
You are struggling to process all the changes, focused on clearing the swamp of uncertainty and making the correct adjustments to your strategy - What has a Joy Factor got to do with anything?
Summer 2019 the Joy GAP, reality 37% VS expectations 90% – GAP equaled 53% of what employees expected to feel.
Think this GAP has likely increased in the past 6 months?
JOY for business 101.
1 - Champion the values to the business your employees generate. Engage, develop then strengthen understanding of values.
2 - Balance Reset priorities, oust outdated initiatives while driving reset strategy clearly, to harness the collective motivation.
Creating JOY will increase the focus, thereby improve your business performance.
Check in the Mirror on Your Decision Making.
Rapid decisions as a reaction to market shifts contain valuable lessons on “the leaning of and into” more effective ways to move forward – Create agility and empowerment and a more dynamic business.
WHY - Define any risk reduction actions. Predetermined steps and safeguards accelerate adaptability
WHO - Determine the status of influencers versus key decision makers. Empowerment streamlines decisions.
WHEN - Review progress and reset within shorter timeframes. Evaluate priorities, stress test theories and mobilize response.
Developing a clear set of revised expectations and the structure to thrive; while coaxing shared values and company’s re-purpose is often improved, by a talented experienced outsider perspective.
Get Past, Repeating the Fire Drill, Mentality.
Innovation Strategy needs to be part of Business Strategy, leading different design or process thinking, toward new ideas and reimagined purpose.
Simply - It will increase understanding of, how to do better. It is intervention that will become a more persistent less expensive way to shape the future for the business.
Act to embolden from the top down. Continuously test experiments to gain realities that equip business to respond quicker.
Universally businesses now contemplate how to support systems in a Pandemic to reduce costs and create more profits. Leverage what you are learning into a true ongoing and supported Innovation Strategy to gain resilience in times of disruption while improving ongoing efficiencies overall long term. Call us we can help you define effective strategies.
Harvard Business Review, Ron Ashkenas
Anticipate – Cope – Adapt Success Strategies in Crisis
History is a great teacher if you don’t, forget! President Lincoln said to Congress, “in facing a fiery trial they must think anew and act anew”.
Face it - we must anticipate, uncertainty. Now that that’s clear, how do businesses best cope and then adapt when your business plan is clearly out of step. THINK ANEW – the plan is obsolete. Test and Experiment - Failing fast after consideration, creates knowledge and new thinking.
Faced with dire alternatives it is highly motivational, to discovering adaptations that work, then defining the Innovation Strategies. ACT ANEW - and progress.
A valuable business lesson from the Pandemic can be supporting “Innovation Strategies” as an integral part of your overall strategy. Your future depends on it.
Channel Anxiety as a New Ally in Building Resiliency
Become a stronger, more empathic, and effective leader.
Pre-pandemic 37% of the workforce respondents reported symptoms of anxiety. To varying degrees Anxiety is now, a Universal Emotion. How to get comfortable?
1. Identify it, how does it manifest, what triggers it? Then label it.
2. Manage it, construct your time as Valuable Blocks, to focus on tangibles; create ideas, forge solutions even in, small steps.
3. Build structure around it, like going to the gym – binge on it, then shower and move on by focusing on what is, probable.
4. Create support techniques, safe-teams, and healthy routines.
“Learn to surf the waves of distress successfully”, Dr. Rebecca Harley, Psychologist, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School
Be a better leader in crisis and build a more resilient organization. Your comments?
Valorization in Pandemics – Are You Doing It?
Did you notice? 46% of US survey respondents switched brands or retailers, according to a recent report from McKinsey.
Top five reasons driving behavior shifts:
1. better price or better price to value ratio,
2. supported employees,
3. repurposed facilities,
4. offered relevant promotions and messages,
5. donated to COVID19 relief efforts
Consumers moved to retailers that created enhanced VALUES. Winning retailers valorized their offering in nimble ways gaining by, really connecting. Those retailers directly improved their status by enhancing their value in consumer perspectives.
Hyperlocal and personalized is one of many strategies to win new converts. The bar of future expectations has been raised a notch or two in the process, call us we can help.
If Your Company was an Athlete…How would you rate its performance?
A better Organizational Health Index (OHI), the more positive business performance will be impacted.
Do your employees feel connected to your Mission? Are they supported by leadership; do you guide career development? Are they empowered by consultations?
What you do, drives behaviors that realize outcomes. Want greater performance? Consider embracing trust, collaboration, engagement, and entrepreneurial culture.
Include the autonomy to experiment to improve performance. Focus on out-of-the-box thinking, grant permissions for talented employees to seek Mission-Driven new growth opportunities along with meeting your expectations. A strong OHI supports exceptional performance. To make yours better – call us.
REINVENTION – A Necessary Strategy For Any Size Business Today.
Clients are referred to us with a new product, the plan for a new service or, in one case, huge quantities of data and wondered, how might they usefully market all this data?
REINVENTION takes on many forms. The need to reinvent is never a closed subject, and certainly a ripe topic now. Our client, who arrived with reams of data, provides a particularly good example of how even Public Data in an extremely specific domain is useful, but with refinement and filtering, that data provided values to resell.
The successful REINVENTION of Public Data into the salable package was ultimately based on a strategy to introduce this data as a Subscription Business Model. The quality of the data was continuously verified. Trust in the data allowed the client’s emphasis to shift from discovery to a much more sharpen focus on effective immediate strategies for where the best sales of their resources could be applied to the field.
We were successful in designing the offering, then building the strategy and ultimately selling into top Oil & Gas companies in North America.
Go - Old or Bold
What can we learn from new on-line shopping habits and unassociated large corporations, who have responded well to the economic crisis?
That Pandemics are a perfect launch point for paradigm shifts. Old habits vs. new behaviors which will you support in your business RESET? “According to BCG’s survey of leading firms, May 2020 only 39% of companies had modified their investment and capital allocation plans to target new growth drivers, and only half had made investments in new business models”. An old habits mindset lives on, in 50-60% of the leading firms surveyed.
Learn from companies navigating crises well, they cut expenses and invest in new growth initiatives. Digitize yes, once you have redefined your business model, then digitize for business model innovation only.
Reset and Grow
Ripe Does Not Last Forever – Strategic Reorientation
Reset, Reinvent, Reorientation: Bleeding losses across a broad narrative heighten the ripeness, our clarity of vision. Move fast to capture opportunities related to features and functions. Recognize the problem, next step solutions. Once tested hypothesis and viable solutions are defined shifting into a Reorientation or Pivot is another way to reach your business goals.
There is no straight path to continued success. Nimbly embrace the shift with empathy and convictions as a route to the ultimate destination. Stay on your mission with a strategic reorientation, by defining specific values this reset will create in part, as the overall aim of the company. Digitalize for speed, build resiliency in the core culture choosing to reinvent instead of fail. Reorientate by focusing on sustainability, you can transform and succeed, we can help.
Govern, Like Business and Manage Like Nature
Manage change as a climate to create improvements. In nature, we are pushed to change, transform, or face decline. The current global lesson, in my opinion, is to advance Sustainability in all aspects of business, government, and personal life as the most important goal now.
Welcome the PUSH, as the Pandemic Uncovers Solution Hindrances now magnified to help evolve positive change quickly. Being pushed to recognize a rainbow of opportunities on a universal scale to; improve performance, beget healthily, and, therefore, resilient strategies, fostered by innovation, does have its pot of gold.
Mutate fearful reactions of uncertainty into actions that include exploring any reasonable option, enlist a respected third-party perspective, bounce ideas like skipping rocks across a pond, research, then refine with native audiences. The climate to change is here, make it sustainable.
How six companies are using technology and data to transform themselves
Last I wrote of “Getting Ahead of the Recovery” by diving deep, while weaknesses are laid bare in our businesses find the top 5 weaknesses that are clearly obvious, thanks COVID.
The new C-word is allowing us all time to examine how to become better. This unique moment enables us to survey the damage and broaden our perspective, appreciate this, for the value it is.
Ready - willingly or not, take stock of where or what are the critical weaknesses. Steady - yourself with eyes open on the COVID Roller Coaster, and add commitment combined with hard work. Reset - as a stronger leader and a better business… but, how?
Step back reframe your horizon, to maintain clarity while the dynamics continue to shift. Your better future business might be obtained as simply as applying Social Values to your decisions.
RESET decisions predicated on community, sustainability, well-being, and diversity. You may find new inspiration, potential PIVOTS that are aligned with new long-term trends, or lateral extensions of your current offerings that are more sustainable paths to growth.
RESET should also include empathy, understanding your new audience while deepening all other relationships. Build better win-win options, create more joy in the process and with that, growth velocity.
GO!
Getting Ahead of The Recovery
No matter what shape the recovery will take, Reset Time is perfect for focusing on your weaknesses. That’s good news because, by this point, those weaknesses should be blatantly obvious. In this beleaguered pressure-cooker, a serious case of nearsightedness is an asset use it, as weaknesses rear-up to an embarrassing level. Work hard to define - What are they?
Earlier this year, I presented in a “Business Success Retreat” a number of RESET recommendations, many resonate even louder today. The advent of this Pandemic hasn’t shifted the fundamentals – 1st you need to manage yourself, what are your top 5 weaknesses taken from the context of the last five months?
If it is your business, you have been evaluating the business’ client experience, supply chain limitations, old operational processes, or product issues, along with your personal weaknesses. Invest in your corrections, asking what do I want to or want my business to become? The health of your recovery is driven by many small new decisions you make to be, better than before.
If you would like to review and course correct, contact our offices we can help you with your business RESET.
Innovation Strategy: Rethink, Reset, Rebalance = Resilience
Universal battering by a Pandemic upending everyone’s normalcy has created a brilliant opportunity to give a giant, Re-Think on so many fronts. The incentives include financial rewards and environmental improvements. Could we possibly, have both?
Recent evidence specific to driving business innovation finds the majority still stay with incremental growth. The minority10%, but more effective innovators are the ones activating transformational growth. Extrapolate - might a collective mindset, that embraces the Big Picture while enduring the pressures and panic of the immediate circumstances be the, best RESET?
Rebalance, if ever there was a time for, Big Ideas Thinking, our psychological and business perspectives have now shifted to breathe in the rare air of, universal introspection. How might we Rebalance old ways with what is working well now, to solve complex problems?
The Exceptional Resilience, I think will find ways to blend business science and environmental science for conceptual clarity and financial gains. What do you envision will create, Exceptional Resilience in businesses of the future?
Design Thinking Comes of Age
Hurrah for empathy, it is about time!
Time we recognized that Design Thinking is a signal an old lighthouse of thought, so to speak. A beacon as our collective ships are banging off rocks in the shape of where is my audience, "how will I now sell my services?" and "we need to totally reinvent ourselves, where do I begin?"
Empathy is an asset that can fuel growth. It’s an advantage that entrepreneurs, business owners have in common, inculcated in their drive for success is valuable empathy in their user's experiences. These understandings are like the stars useful in navigating toward growth in these challenging seas of disruption. Position your ship or acquire the necessary perspective to let the light shine on your advantages!
Business owners are Captains of their world, experienced in testing multiple scenarios than in a collective flattened hierarchy, finding nuances to gain a sense of their market. But many have disconnected to their view of the horizon out of fear, and with that, the rudder wobbles.
Simplify and humanize business development, raise the sails with emotional intelligence to grow internal and external relationships, and retake the ship's command! You have an Empathy Advantage – the trade winds to common purpose with your clients, to reach new goals.
Managing Isolation
Managing Isolation is something that Small Business communities should incorporate into their practices, especially during today's climate.
Alarm bells are ringing, louder! “Excess deprivation from social contact gradually drains people of energy and creativity while stressing them out.” Alternatives, if unchecked unfortunately do lead to some extremely bad choices.
The perfect storm of physical distancing, financial stress, and national anxiety is impacting everyone. But social distancing is having a profoundly negative impact, in the trenches. The human need for connection is giving rise to freelance, professionals suffering, and the unhealthy emotional and financial toll of distancing for the small business community needs resilient, innovative small step remedies with immediate positive consequences.
Data science in large organizations is building an understanding of their population’s response and defining effective remedies that may be especially useful for small businesses, too. One simple internal enterprise outcome can be incredibly positive - seed new networks while expanding existing ones. Entrepreneurs will in this seeding process reinvent themselves while finding quick wins in identifying new opportunities.