The Ultimate Corporate Entrepreneur

Navigating Business Disruptions: Build A Surplus of Customer Trust

Waiting for my flight in the lounge area of San Francisco airport, I wondered how American Airlines will fare with the disruption of operations following their Chapter 11 announcement and the loss of their CEO who quit for moral reasons following the board's action.

In Innovation in a Reinvented World I compare four industries operating in the old world of business versus the new world of business--transportation being one of them--and how the U.S. has slipped behind the innovation curve. Ironically, I list American Airlines as the only major U.S. carrier to avoid bankruptcy proceedings while still performing its maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) work in the U.S.; unfortunately, another potential disruption to operations in a Chapter 11 world.

Although quick to appease skittish customers that it would be business as usual, American Airlines must keep in mind that two types of customers exist: the external customer--the buying public--and the internal customer--the innovating workforce.  

Not only is it going to be tough managing day-to-day disruptions associated with shifts in business, AA will need to parallel-manage disruptive innovations within the company. The only way to do this successfully is with a surplus of trust with both customers.

 

Trust Deficit vs. Trust Surplus 

Much of my 25-year career and business has focused on two sides of the same coin: disrupting the status quo via innovations and helping others navigate their way through organizational disruptions.

Innovation catalysts can weaken customer confidence when they disrupt daily operations, and if they fail to account for this ahead of time they risk creating a trust deficit. You'll want to bank enough customer credibility to tie you over a self-induced business disruption. Your goal is to approach a disruptive situation with your customer accounts in good standing, thus creating a surplus of trust. 

A bigger challenge--and one that many businesses find themselves in today--is successfully managing market driven disruptions, customers' demands, and an organization's needs to fast-track internal innovations. Businesses that didn't pace themselves throughout the Great Recession are scrambling coming out of this economic slump. 

This is where alignment of your internal customer base, i.e., your employees, along with your external customers, partners, and suppliers becomes critical. Product, service and process innovations don't happen by accident.

 

Assessing Your Trust Quotient

Let's begin with your internal customers and business partners. How loyal are your employees? How engaged in the company's reinvention strategies have they been during the last three years? Did they channel their energy into fear-based activities, e.g., fear of layoffs, instead of creative endeavors plus personal risktaking that fully engages them in the innovation process?

According to the Q4 2011 Randstad Employee Attachment Index, employees have mixed emotions about 2012:

• 56 percent of surveyed workers think they would not be able to find a job they would accept 
• 47 percent plan to explore other opportunities as soon as the job market picks up
• 74 percent feel optimistic about their organization’s future
• 73 percent feel secure in their current jobs

How loyal are your customers? Continuing to nurture the customer relationship through economic ups and downs--whether they've placed recent orders with you or not--is key to retaining trust. 

What about your strategic partners and suppliers? How engaged have they been in aligning themselves with your economic recovery strategies? Have you ignored them or did you use the anemic economy to renegotiate existing agreements that squeezed more out of them at less cost (win-lose)? Do you know whether they're using this down time to build new partnerships that could potentially impact your business in the next three years?

 

Call to Action: Reinvention Readiness

Do you know your organization's reinvention sweet spot?

As a business leader, you'll want to know whether you're facing 2012 with a trust deficit or trust surplus with employees, external customers, strategic partners, and suppliers.

Keep your surprises for the holidays. 

Moving Beyond Setbacks: My 15-Day Rule

Unfortunately, I missed this year's Grace Hopper Conference where my role as participant and blogger would have been a different hat than the one I wore at last year's event as a workshop leader.

A senior technical leader reminded me of the 15-day rule that I shared during my talk on collaborative risktaking and how it had helped her move beyond setbacks this past year.

She thought it would be helpful for me to layout the process that I use--good idea!--so here it is.

 

My 15-Day Rule

Anyone who's been in business for any length of time has experienced setbacks, and if they say they haven't, they're either lying to you or aren't taking enough risks that make a big enough difference.

Years ago I developed my own plan for getting over setbacks--the kind that make you feel as if someone just punched you in the stomach.

I developed my own rule not because of the initial pain (although bad enough), but because I played it out in my head for days, weeks, and even months later. Internalizing setbacks makes us fearful and way too reluctant to move our lives forward and take risks again.

It doesn't matter how many days you spend on a particular step in the process, only that you learn to release and move on within a set timeframe--15 days works for me.

 

Days 1-3: Release

What to Do: Deal with the emotional side of disappointment and anger. Cry. Sleep in a fetal position for 12 hours straight. Watch sports or movies all day in your sweats or jammies. Eat your favorite food (yes, chocolate can be considered a meal). Use cuss words that you never (or rarely) use, just don't direct them at your local cafe barista. 

What not to Do: Go on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn to voice or vent your anger. Try not to make a public display of your emotions. If you are a public figure, it may be difficult to not call a press conference to voice your side of the story. But try. We're only talking three days.

 

Days 4-5: Celebrate

List all the great things that you've contributed to something bigger than yourself; invite folks to share how you've transformed them, their relationships (supporting their dog through obedience training does count), their environment at work, or even their business or organization. 

Invite people to be creative in sharing their appreciation with you. Their thanks might come via email, video, audio, a blog post, a poem or a handwritten letter.

You might consider throwing a small, dinner party or a bigger, informal gathering where someone other than yourself cooks for the group.

 

Day 6: Pamper

Get the full 9-yards--whatever makes you feel and look good. A new haircut, 90-minute massage, facial, pedicure and manicure, a new shirt or blouse that makes your "eyes pop". Spend a half day at your favorite cafe reading a new book, breaking in your new Kindle, iPad, Nook or other electronic toy.

 

Days 7-10: Assess, Discover and Learn

You're now ready to take a step back and see the bigger picture of what worked, didn't work, and what you will do differently in future. Here are a few questions to get you started.

• What top 3 things--the heavy hitters--impacted the outcome?
• What could you have controlled but chose not to?
• Who could you have influenced but didn't?
• What risks did you not take that might have changed the outcome?
• What risks did you take that never felt right to you, i.e., forced?
• Did you ask for help too late or not enough times along the way?
• What were your missed opportunities along the way?
• What advice did you wrongly heed?
• What advice did you fail to heed but will in future?
• What heavy hitters were identified during your team's debrief?

 

Days 11-14: Refine Your Approach, Reinvent, and Rebrand

This is when you pull together what you've learned and refine your approach for future. You might want to consider tapping the expertise of mentors and coaches or an advisory board who will provide you with their perspectives.

This is when you decide whether it's time to reinvent and rebrand yourself within the next 3 or 6 months. Your decision will be driven by the outcomes of your self-assessment with that of your team and support network.

 

Day 15: Closure

Congratulations--you've reached the point of letting go of the past and moving towards your future. 

Make it a great one in 2012!

The Art of the Exit

This past year I've experienced "transitional speed-up" while writing Innovation in a Reinvented World, a reminder that embracing the ebb and flow of disruption is the norm in this new reality.

The speed of change and the degree of complexity in solving big problems in the new world of business requires a faster regeneration of our innovation DNA. Our ability to manage beginnings and endings, entrances and exits with agility, speed and finesse will become enhanced skill sets in the coming years.

Unfortunately, institutions--business, education and government--waste far too much time preparing and keeping people in place instead of educating and rewarding them in the art of the exit.

Embracing a life of transition requires that we prepare people for three things:

1. When it's time to let go of the old (the release)
2. How to release (the transitional process)
3. What to leave behind or bring along to enhance the next entrance (the reinvention)

Learning to see our lives as cycles of transition helps us to accept endings as a pathway to new beginnings, creative opportunities, and innovations. 

Pain Comes from Hanging On

I've suspected for some time that pain comes about when we hang on too long to outworn ideas, products, services, processes, and even relationships we've outgrown. By ignoring the early warning signs that "something" is stale and must either be rejuvenated or released, we miss opportunities for embracing disruption and innovating in front of the curve. Mediocrity becomes the norm by which we measure our lives and our relationships, our career or business, and our products and services.

In today's (still) sour economy there are plenty of people hanging on to toxic jobs that they hate and unhealthy relationships that they outgrew years ago. Leaders and managers do the white-knuckle-grip of fear, hanging on to the old way of doing business because disrupting an organization comfortable with the status quo is too risky. Companies continue to reward false distractions that deflect real change and transformation.

Our anemic economy requires executives, business leaders and professionals with the courage to shake up their fear-based mindset and embrace disruption with a clear objective towards innovating.

Creating Bridges

Transition can be a fearful thing for many people. The pace of transition in our lives is happening at such a fast clip that we're seeing this anxiety play out in societies around the world.

For years, as a reinvention readiness consultant and innovation catalyst I've helped people navigate and embrace change; teaching executives, business leaders and professionals about connecting the dots--"reading" and recognizing endings--in prepartion for new beginnings.

Exit Strategists, Transition Specialists

Today's businesses require navigators, guides, mentors and coaches for a reinvented world--transitioning us from the old world (old thinking) to the new world (new thinking).

We need people who are comfortable with recognizing and leading disruptive change and innovating in front of the curve. We also need people who can identify those who, in general, struggle with change and who will serve as bridges for these individuals who must learn to adapt and thrive in this time of transitional speed-up.

Business leaders must move away from punishing workers for not keeping up and, instead, reward them for assuming ownership for their own disruptions--career, business, and personal--providing various types of safety nets as they step out and design transitional accountability into their lifecycle plan.

Preparing people for a lifetime of transition also means allowing people to cycle in and out of roles (and the rigid titles that often accompany them); removing the "position stigma" that often comes when someone steps back to strengthen a skill or to lend their expertise where needed. Organizations will need to reinvent how they recognize and reward people for their contributions when continuous learning at any age and at any stage in someone's career is now a requirement.

[You can learn more about my 10 complimentary webinars and download a free chapter by "liking" our new Facebook page.]

 

The World According to Futurists

Francine Gordon and I returned from this year's WorldFuture 2011 Conference in Vancouver where we co-led the workshop Corporate Innovation 2030: Revolution or Reinvention?

Don Byrne, CEO of Metrix411, and I met during one of the highlight sessions for me at the conference Acquiring Complexapacity: The Universal Imperative of the 21st Century led by consulting futurist, David Pearce Snyder. I'll be incorporating his ideas into future blog posts.

Don Byrne's info-packed session on Benchmarking Community Resiliency was another key session for me. Don shares highlights from his talk in this video interview.

 

  

 

I also caught up with futurist and author, Verne Wheelwright, during an early morning coffee meeting where he shares his ideas about the next wave of futurists. 

 

 

 

3 Ways U.S. Companies Can Avoid Starving Business Innovation in 2011

U.S. companies reluctant to hire during this Great Recession should consider the longer range impact on innovation and business competitiveness.

The risk of not hiring in front of the curve could hamper, if not choke, the infusion of desired skills into the workforce.

With U.S. corporations recording the highest profits on record last quarter while more than 20 million people were in need of full-time work, we can expect the Obama administration to revisit this topic with corporate CEOs in 2011.

Feeding workplace innovation in 2011 will require new menus and enhanced service. So, let's look at three ways that companies can bridge gaps between today's hiring freeze and future workplace innovation.

 

1. Fear of Change

Fear is more than a word. It's become a widespread disease in the U.S. that threatens to change our country's entrepreneurial DNA. Fear is insidious. It can rewrite an organization's cultural DNA in unwanted ways for years to come.

Innovation doesn't come without disruption and creative destruction. Business leaders without the mindset for embracing change cannot expect their knowledge workers to value and model entrepreneurship.

Consider the re-entry of professionals returning to work after a dry spell of 27+ weeks. How would your organization appear to them? Would they notice others reluctant to question, challenge, and disrupt the status quo? Does your onboarding and new hire orientation programs align with the realities of the workplace?

A new hire who perceives the organization's culture as fear-based, and who might also be carrying their own "fear baggage" of long-term unemployment into the job, will quickly grasp what a company's formal culture says and what its informal culture does.

Feeding Innovation Now: Leadership teams could develop a 2011 plan for rewriting the organization's DNA from a culture of fear to one that values and rewards change as the means of keeping the company in front of the curve and its competition. This presents a great opportunity for HR leaders to partner with their executive teams in redesigning tomorrow's workplace for the new world of business.

 

2. Stale or Obsolete Skill Sets

I've noticed that unemployed professionals tend to contemplate personal renewal and career reinvention after they've been out of work for at least six months. It doesn't seem to register that they might not be able to find the same type of job in their field until they've reached this "unemployed marker". 

But it's a grab bag of sorts when these same professionals attempt to reinvent themselves without knowing the future needs of employers who, in turn, may not know the required skills their organizations will need a year from now.

This means that professionals who might otherwise receive emerging skills training as part of their jobs must now second guess--and frequently pay out of pocket--for critical knowledge and technologies that may not be in demand by employers tomorrow.

The longer that people remain out of work the greater the risk that their skill sets will become obsolete and employers unable to meet their immediate and future needs within the existing labor pool.

Feeding Innovation Now: This is where a partnership between private industry, government, university extensions and community colleges could come together to close the short-term and longer range hiring needs of employers while providing unemployed Americans with training in emerging technologies, entrepreneurial skill development and career enhancement at no cost to them.

The U.S. Government could provide two-year tax breaks for corporations willing to invest resources for funding these community partnerships while agreeing to prioritize their hiring from this pool of talent. This "Hiring for an Innovative Future" initiative could possibly "nest" within the existing H.R. 5116: America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010 (currently awaiting President Obama's signature) that aims "to invest in innovation through research and development, to improve the competitiveness of the United States, and for other purposes".

3. The Reinvented Organization

Reinventing the organization is a good thing unless you're on the outside without a means of looking in. With entire industries adapting, reinventing, and innovating in response to this Great Disruption, unemployed professionals who have not been part of the process will need to play catch up.

Innovation generated within an existing business stems from entrepreneurial types; people who understand the company's products, services, policies and processes and who can skillfully use their peripheral vision to see opportunities where others see problems. These change catalysts know how to navigate and get things done within the company, across its borders and, quite often, influence how the business is perceived beyond its walls.

However, these skills require both formal and informal learning and on-the-job mentoring, something that doesn't happen overnight.

More energy is required to close the gap between the extent of an organization's change and the length of time someone is out of work. 

The training costs associated with bringing new hires up to speed, particularly for professionals who've been out of work for longer than six months, might serve as a deterrent for hiring the long-term unemployed. But organizations overlooking the "gems of experience" and the entrepreneurial professionals capable of contributing at a faster clip, risk not adding the right mix to their existing talent pool at the right time.  

Feeding Innovation Now: Learning and Development leaders could reinvent their existing onboarding and new hire programs to include entrepreneurial management training within the first six weeks of someone joining the organization. It's important that your existing employee base also goes through this training as part of a "re-boarding" process to ensure that everyone is playing on the same field. 

By providing consistent narratives and case examples of what success and Responsible Risktaking looks like for your business, you're able to define the innovation playing field and establish trust in the company's values. Trust serves as a support net for people in helping them own their decisions and accept responsibility for their actions.

 

These are just a few of my ideas to get things pumping for the U.S. in 2011. What ideas do you have for rebuilding an organization on a more entrepreneurial footing while globally competing and still generating higher paying jobs for Americans? We can create our own predictions. Feel free to contribute your ideas on how we can do better in 2011!