Recently, I had the wonderful opportunity to sit down for dinner with three leaders from three different organizations from three different parts of the country. All of them were struggling with the same issues and problems. All of them were wanting to help their teams become much better. All of them were zooming in to fix things rather than zooming out to understand the bigger picture. So, I decided to open our dinner conversation about what each of these leaders were seeing as the big picture trends that were influencing their work and society at this time period.
First, all of the leaders gathered talked about the huge retirement wave that is happening across the country. Many called it a silver tsunami with major implications, especially in the areas of loss of understanding, clarity and experience.
Next, those gathered talked about the aging of society in general, healthcare challenges, and their intense worry about a possible recession in the midst of it all.
Third, many shared about how current political actions feel like we are perpetuating adversarial relationships more than building collaborative relationships focused on common goals.
Finally, all of them talked about the many challenges they are having with recruitment and retention of talent. Each acknowledged that If you don’t take care of your people, they will leave for better compensation. As I listened, I kept thinking of Packard’s Law which states that no company can consistently grow revenues faster than its ability to get enough of the right people to implement that growth with excellence.
The upshot of this big picture conversation was the recognition that leaders and organizations need to be more nimble - i.e. able to learn and understand things quickly and easily, agile - i.e. move quickly and easily, and flexible - i.e. willing to change and try new things.
Over the course of this wonderful dinner meeting, I had three thoughts and I will share two of them with you today. First, we are clearly operating within a VUCA environment which is a military meaning volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous environment within which we can rarely predict, influence or govern most events. We also are living through a “continuous series of not normal times”, referencing the work of Jim Collins and Morten T. Hansen in their book, Great By Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck - Why Some Thrive Despite Them All, HarperCollins, 2011.
Second, all who were gathered that evening were worried about “knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns.” Former U.S. defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld made this famous phrase in 2002. As he explained” “there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns - the ones we don’t know we don’t know. And … it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones.”
In a market-driven economy where every one and every thing is in the danger of being commoditized, we as leaders need to do some serious and in-depth reflection to determine if we as individuals and our organization have the capacity to be nimble, agile, and flexible. Given the world we live in right now, this is no longer optional. Understanding the bigger picture always helps us make smarter choices over time.
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