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After spending time with a valued client this week and reviewing what can only be described as a stellar performance by his business, I was struck by his eagerness to play down his considerable successes and him reminding me that“ all boats rise with the tide”. Despite his successes my client was undoubtedly still wary of what lies ahead with factors such as Brexit, global political and economic uncertainty looming large. His comments made me reflect and consider strategies for surviving in turbulent times. I was left wondering how many leaders today really know how to adapt quickly when faced with more“ turbulent” times. At Chalkhill Blue our team all leverage their considerable experience of working against similar challenges on a daily basis. We share a belief that businesses need to adopt no less than 4 key strategies for surviving turbulent times, namely;
• ABANDONMENT,
• CONTINUOUS PRODUCTIVITY IMPROVEMENT
• EXPLOITATION OF SUCCESSES
• INNOVATION
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ABANDONMENT is centred on the belief that only by abandoning the obsolete and unproductive activities in an organisation can that organisation survive. In essence, only by abandoning unproductive and sidetracking activities, can entrepreneurs and business owners increase their effectiveness by having more time to concentrate on key result areas. Put another way –“ LESS IS DEFINITELY MORE”!!
It’ s therefore critical that successful leaders follow a systematic process of asking themselves – what should we abandon, how and by when?
CONTINUOUS PRODUCTIVITY IMPROVEMENTS are very much aligned with the Japanese Kaizen methodology. At Chalkhill Blue Drucker we are a firm believer in the fact that leadership in turbulent times is about systematic continuous improvement of products and services, production processes, marketing, service, technology, training, and development of people and the like.
Underpinned by robust benchmarking and measurement the success gets sustained by cultivating the right efforts and by getting everyone in the organisation to do things a little better day in day out.
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EXPLOITATION OF SUCCESS is also critically important. In essence by the time your organisation has doubled in size, the way you perceive and service your market is likely to have become somewhat outdated. In other words, the ways in which you define and segment the market no longer reflects reality as it simply reflects history.
Exploiting success therefore requires leaders to build an opportunity- focused organisation as opposed to one focused on solving problems.
In doing so there comes a point when the small steps of exploitation result in a fundamental change i. e. in something that is generally new and very different.
INNOVATION strategies are also a crucial final piece of the plan. Innovative companies and leaders realise that they cannot simultaneously create the new and take care of what they already have. The maintenance of the present business is far too big a task for the people in it to have much time for creating the new, different business of tomorrow.
Consequently specific, dedicated resources need to be applied to fuel true innovation and these resources need to be organised outside of the ongoing
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managerial business to have chance of succeeding.
Returning to my client’ s comments and by way of conclusion, I think it’ s easy to see how today’ s leaders that are intent on creating sustainable, competitive advantage need to be applying these very same principles each and every day, be it in good times or bad.
If you’ d like to find out how we help ambitious companies like yours“ unlock their true potential” please don’ t hesitate to get in touch.
# Love the results
01793 239542 chris @ chalkhillblue. org
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34 THE BUSINESS EXCHANGE 2018 |