“The challenge for leaders in every field is to emerge from turbulent times with closer connections to their customers, with more energy and creativity from their people, and with greater distance between them and their rivals”, writes William Taylor in his book, Practically Radical: Not-so-crazy ways to transform your company, shake up your industry, and challenge yourself (William Morrow, 2011). And I agree 100% with him.
As we move through this stage of the global pandemic, many senior leaders and their teams are deep into strategic level thought and planning. Most want to emerge strong, prepared and primed for more growth and profitability. Some are even using the word “transformation” as they prepare for the future.
When I participate in these strategic level dialogues, I am remind of the “Five Truths of Corporate Transformation” that William Taylor wrote about in the aforementioned book. As he explained:
- “Most organizations in most fields suffer from a kind of tunnel vision, which makes it hard to envision a more positive future.
- Most leaders see things the same way everyone else sees them because they look for ideas in the same places everyone else looks for them.
- In troubled organizations rich with tradition and success, history can be a curse - and a blessing. The challenge is to break from the past without disavowing it.
- The job of the change agent is not just to surface high-minded ideas. It is to summon a sense of urgency inside and outside the organization, and to turn that urgency into action.
- In a business environment that never stops changing, change agents can never stop learning.”
At this point, we know there is a lot of pent up demand in the market place and there will be a lot of competition to meet the needs of the market place. We also know there are high expectations for companies to offer outstanding customer service. High performance expectations are part of returning to normalcy.
With this in mind, all managers and leaders need to remember one other key point that Taylor made: “Forget the question, What keeps you up at night? The bigger question is What gets you up in the morning? What keeps your people more committed than ever, even as the environment gets more demanding than ever?”
This week answer the above two questions for yourself, and then meet with your team to discuss your answers. Invite them to answer these questions, too. If we seek to be transformational in a post global pandemic world, we need all involved to be moving in the same direction and for the same reasons.
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