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It’s time for a change.... where? Here are some places where we think real change for the better need to happen - and happen soon. Where we can, we’re going to lead the way by example. Why not join us..?
Riding the Wave of Change
A genuine understanding of the rate of business change is needed in both business and in government. In business terms, we believe we are coming to a tipping point. The changes that have occurred in the past 25+ years are just the low level precursor to what is coming next. Yes, we know that may be hard for some to comprehend and it’s preferable to think that your organisation and market is going to be the exception that avoids the impact of such changes - but they’re not.
The Manufacturing Change Wave has been and gone; the Services Change Wave is next. Capital market funding and job mobility are set to rise significantly across the globe. It’s both a business opportunity and a threat - and a ‘let’s change one small step at a time’ approach won’t work. So it’s time to be honest, confront reality and start finding the best ways to make change happen - it’s not going away.
For most business organisations this means developing significant levels of internal flexibility and completely new ways of working with customers and suppliers. It’s time to stop thinking about business in top-down, hierarchical, command and control ways and trying to eliminate every risk or potential discomfort.
Your customers, markets, competitors and the world won’t wait until your ready; change is happening now. The only question is are you leading or being left behind..?
Leadership & Integrity
Leadership is contagious - but so is cynicism and mistrust. Trust is not a commodity. Once trust is lost, it’s likely to be gone forever. You can take a command and control, top-down, directive JFDI approach, or you can lead. Don’t mistake one for the other. Also, you can’t lead by proxy; using cynical approaches to personal risk management doesn’t inspire others.
Leaders have followers - and followers don’t follow for long on a JFDI basis. Which style you and the culture of your company adopt will increasingly determine how successful you are - in terms of staff productivity, retention, recruitment and also in terms of suppliers and customers; their perspective of you and their reaction to you.
Professional Services Industry
We’re in the professional services industry and we think there’s a lot of things about the sector that need to change - and we believe in leading by example. So we want to say a big “hello” to:
- respect for the client’s experience and expertise
- working in genuinely collaborative teams
- real leadership that focuses on both relationships and business outcomes
and say “good-bye” to:
- the unhelpful “I know better than you, pseudo-superior” attitude that some consultants exhibit. It serves no one and creates miscommunication and resentment.
- the notion that a company must specialise in only one or two areas of expertise. The rate of change means that the old ways aren’t working any more. Taking just strategy or technology or CRM-only perspective doesn’t work. The complexity and ever-changing dynamics and feedback between strategy, finance, structural, operational considerations, the dynamic changes in the market and technical opportunities and challenges need to be addressed and balanced for real change to work.
It’s not all that needs to be done, but it’s a start...
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