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Leading or Managing Change?


Creativity and innovation are hot topics for businesses these days. Whether if it is new products, new business models, or customer insights – businesses today need to reinvent constantly to stay above competitions. If you blink, you lose. Your businesses can become irrelevant before you know it. Disruptive players are in the marketplace and are leap-frogging incumbents in all industries. Changes are eminent and happening at an accelerated rate, often too fast for comfort.

There is no question that the need to innovate is urgent. Lots of companies are spending a lot of money chasing after easy routes to ‘innovation’ — acquiring start-ups and talent and institutionalizing methodologies for innovation — but the end result often leaves much to be desired.

A series of HBR articles recently stated that 70–90% of new strategies and M&A fail. So much value is destroyed; so much talent is wasted. Why does this happen? My experience at large companies, small start-ups, and everything in between, has taught me that the key is not whether or not the strategy is valid, nor if there are talents in the organization, it lies within the organization’s ability to execute during a time of change.

In 2009, Yahoo had all the talent needed but failed miserably as an organization in terms of utilizing that talent. They had gaps when embracing the speed of change and the importance of adaptability; they also struggled with integration and alignment.

Success happens when you continue to assess where you are and adapt and learn, so that your people are willing to swim with you through a time of continuous change.

It is about leaders embracing and inviting change as an opportunity rather than as a threat, viewing it with courage rather than fear, and with openness rather than control.

It is about the attitude of your organization and its willingness to collectively and continuously be open to new information; a willingness to disrupt itself for higher learning and improvements. It is also about looking at your business — not just the balance sheets and income statements (although they are important!). But looking at it as a living organism that grows, learns, creates value for its customers, and reaps the financial benefits as a result.

This requires the deepest level of integration and synchronism between your business, your product/service, and your people strategy — i.e. viewing them as a system rather than parts.

It also requires deep empathy for your people, customers, and stakeholders, as well as a pursuit of honest, open communication channels (both formal and informal) across all levels of organization in order to surface information. It is about cultivating a culture of learning, inspiration, and playfulness!

Ultimately, it is about leading with your mind and your heart — and tuning into the importance of people and finding ways to tap into their talents.

A Surfer Culture

An analogy of surfboarding comes to mind. With the desire to catch the big waves, the surfer creates and catches opportunities — the stronger the wave, the higher the adrenaline, and the higher the ability to weather the unexpected. A surfer charges forward without fear, gets up after falling, and knows himself/herself and the environment well enough to experiment.

A Dam Culture

The opposite analogy is a water dam — where a massive fortress is built to contain the water and systematically dispense it. This is the Input and Output model. The approach is planned, the outcome is controlled, and the process is managed to precision.

Change starts from is about strategic visioning versus planning. It ends in business transformation versus management.

I don’t want to discount the fact that business planning is important for long-term viability. I came from a background of quantitative analysis and know the importance and power of data, financial statements, control and accountability —but these are no longer enough if you want to leap.

The next time, instead of theorizing the strategy of what to do with traditional business planning methods — you name it — Market sizing, Competitive analysis, SWOT, Porter’s Five Forces, Balanced Scorecards, Activity Matrix Mapping, etc. —try to incorporate the “how” and the “being” into your strategy.

Build an organizational culture and system (your own and one for your organization) for learning, adaptability, integration, resilience, and capability building, all anchored by a higher vision and purpose. Help your people see the “why” linkage. When things get rough, new opportunities arise; your biggest employee retention plan comes from the connection your employees feel with you and the organization. Inspire, empathize, and connect.

One final thought: Just as chasing “happiness” does not make it come any faster, chasing innovation and creativity does not make a leader more innovative or creative. Innovation and creativity come from enabling the ”being” in your organization — giving people the permission to seek inspiration, to seize, try, and perhaps fail — and having fun!

It is the process that yields the end result.

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