When Things Get Tough, Discard the Shovel

When leaders face tough situations, they often decide to dig in and shelter.  The recession and most recently sequestration have caused more than a few leaders to take out their shovels, dig a bunker, and hunker down.  They cut budgets, pull back from investments, and focus on protecting their existing business.  But is this a strategy for long-term success? 

When you take your team underground, they may at first be relieved to be out of danger.  However, over time, relief turns to frustration, boredom and atrophy. Companies that have dug in, cut costs, and sought protection lose.  Morale suffers and competitive muscles get weak.  When you finally pull your team out from the hole, the landscape is completely different and you have a team ill-prepared to journey on.

Let me paint this picture...

There’s an ominous storm approaching.  It has the potential to wreak devastating harm on you and your team.  The path of the storm is uncertain.  The threat could move away, be less damaging, or could be disastrous.  There’s simply no way of knowing.  The storm stands between you and your destination.  Instead of taking on the approaching menace, you dig a hole for protection.  Safely in your bunker, you realize you can’t see as far – you have no way of knowing what is going on outside.  Because you’ve expended tremendous energy digging, you no longer have the strength to repel the potential onslaught if it arrives.  Instead, you rely entirely on the shelter you’ve constructed and hope it doesn’t fail.  Finally, you’re in a hole.  When you decide to leave, you have to crawl up and out.  When you get your head above ground, you may no longer recognize your surroundings.  Depending on the length of time you spent underground and the effects of the storm, you may no longer recognize the way ahead.  In fact, you may wonder if your original objective still exists.

Trench warfare was the strategy during World War I. Sheltered inside ditches, underground bunkers, and tunnels, soldiers spent days, weeks, and months without ever getting a glimpse above ground.  When they did, what they often found before them was a wasteland.  The protection afforded by their fortifications saved lives, but at a horrible cost.  Those effects included trench foot, disease, atrophy, and limited escape from gas attacks.  During World War II, the German Army simply maneuvered around the bunkers constructed by the French.  While holed up safely underground, the Germans conquered.  In both wars, many having been stuck underground for so long, lost their mind. 

What do bunkers and trench warfare have to do with your company’s strategy?  Consider the following phrases and ask yourself if you’ve heard or spoken any lately.

• We need to protect the core.
• We will reinforce the franchise.
• We’re pulling back to carefully allocate resources.
• We simply need to weather the storm.
• We have to conserve our strength to live and fight another day.
• Everyone else is digging in too.

Some use the approach of withdrawing behind seemingly impregnable walls to wait out the assault.  In ancient times, a siege rarely worked well for those barricaded inside.  A determined adversary could surround the fortress and starve those inside of supplies and reinforcements or simply go around leaving them isolated.  Companies can become insular with this strategy.  They starve themselves of great talent (the company is not presently hiring) and cut themselves off from strategic opportunities.  Venturing from the secure gates of their existing strategy is deemed too risky.  And when the siege is finally over, their competitors have moved on and secured new markets.  Why would you choose to barricade yourself when opportunity and growth lie beyond the company’s walls?

We all possess a tendency to protect ourselves when danger emerges.  It’s wired into our brains as part of our ‘fight or flight’ defense mechanism.  So it’s natural to seek shelter in a storm.  Leaders however know that digging in has its limitations.  When you take your team underground, you have foreclosed options in lieu of perceived protection.  While remaining on your path has perils, staying put is more treacherous.  There are times when seeking temporary shelter is prudent, but too often, people are lulled into a false sense of security and stay too long. 

"This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

During tough times, there are always companies that emerge stronger and better.  They prevail in spite of the storm because they deliberately choose not to dig in.  Instead, while everyone else is hunkered down, they seize the initiative to capitalize on open territory left unprotected while competitors are holed up.  They face into the storm and press forward.  They are able to maintain a view of the obstacles ahead and maneuver around them.  And in the end, they are the ones who are able to execute their strategy, seize their objective, and win.  Standing on the high ground, they look around and find their competitors nowhere in sight – they are still waiting for the storm to pass.

I’ve worked with numerous clients facing significant challenges.  Some are already stuck in bunkers or behind walls while others have chosen to brave the elements and press on.  Looking at declining quarterly numbers, slipping opportunities, and shrinking market can create concern or even panic.  It can be confusing and fearful.  But digging the hole deeper or adding another layer of rock to the wall won’t change the course.  If you aren’t moving forward, you’re losing ground.  These times call leaders to courage and creativity.  Finding a way may require letting go of the perceived safety and taking on some risk.  You may have to abandon what has proven to be successful in exchange for something different and potentially better.  These are hard decisions to make.

When facing tough times, companies that will prevail are the ones who choose to press on.  They use creativity and ingenuity to find a better way.  They invest wisely, deploy their resources to meet the challenge, and maneuver their way through the minefields.  Adjusting their strategy to meet the approaching storm, they chart a new path.  Companies that choose to shovel themselves into a shelter may be able to weather the storm, but they emerge weaker.  Having kept their teams underground they suffer from maladies of discontent, discouragement, and atrophy.  Their competitive muscles are weakened by months of living in the dark. 

If your company has decided to “protect” itself and its business, can you be sure it will truly survive to fight another day?  Why not reexamine your strategy and decide to take your team forward?  With discipline and innovation, you can craft an approach that keeps you moving and allows you to capitalize on the timidity of your competitors.  Darwin had it right – in business as in nature, it’s survival of the fittest.  You can’t stay fit sitting in a bunker.  Embrace the challenge!

Duane Grove is founder of Connect2Action, a strategy execution specialist at the intersection of employee engagement and executive leadership, igniting innovation as a lever to accelerate your growth.  Follow Duane on Twitter @connect2action and connect with him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Google+.  Learn more by visiting www.connect2action.com.

All In – Navigating Turbulence

While Washington politicians continue to argue over the fiscal cliff and the Nation’s tenuous financial position, companies may feel left on the sidelines.  Many are caught up in the turbulence waiting to make investment decisions and struggling with how to adapt their strategies in an environment of uncertainty.  Some are taking a strategic pause waiting out decisions.  Unfortunately, they wait with no voice in the debate, a seemingly decreasing list of options, and a market that continues to churn on.

Standing on the sidelines searching for a way to navigate these waters is a recipe for decline.  Holding onto customers and programs while drawing down on backlog cannot deliver growth.  Executives may believe they can outlast the turmoil, conserve resources, and ultimately emerge relatively unharmed.  But, standing still is a recipe for disaster and demise.  Companies willing to turn their face into the wind and press forward are more likely to emerge stronger and better positioned.  Deciding to stay on the bench will lead to entropy and decline.

Companies should instead play all the cards in their deck while remaining mindful of their environment and the risks involved.  Great poker players often remain in the game despite the cards they’ve been dealt.  These players have learned to keep their options open.  You can’t win if you fold.  Going “all in” is sometimes a strategy to bluff and deceive opponents that your hand is stronger than it actually is.  Other times, you push your chips in because the odds are clearly in your favor.  Poker is a game of risk and while there are strategies that improve your chances to win, the turn of the deck still creates a wild card for which you may win or lose.

What does this mean for companies facing an uncertain future?  First, companies should recognize that choosing to wait for a better hand is like folding.  In the market, there is no such thing as holding your hand.  If you’re not moving forward, you’re headed backward.  While the next hand may offer a better chance to win, it may be equally bad or worse than the hand you have now.  You may be able to conserve your cash by choosing not to play, but someone will win and they will have an even greater reserve to draw from in the next round.  Companies should be in the game to win, not lose.  Despite the circumstances, there are always companies that find a way to capitalize.  This is where innovation comes in. 

Second, you can’t accurately anticipate what your competitors will do.  Staying in the game gives you more information to assess the hands of others at the table.  A bluff is often designed to get your competitor to show their hand first.  It also costs your competitor more to stay longer (as it does you).  This kind of hardball approach drains a competitor’s bank making it more difficult for them to play the next round.  To make this effective, you should have an exit plan knowing at what point you choose to walk from the hand.  Staying competitive allows your organization to remain sharp.  You learn more when you’re in the game, not watching from the sidelines.  By choosing to wait, your organization is losing its competitive muscle and will be weaker.  Keep your competitive edge by playing!

Lastly, when you know you’ve got a strong hand, play it well.  Many companies have great products or capabilities that can be readily adapted to the table they're playing.  Be careful not to overplay your hand and not go “all in” too soon.  Markets change rapidly and if you show your hand too soon, you give competitors an opportunity to play you deep and exhaust your resources.  Keep in mind that the same hardball approach could be played against you.

Dealing with uncertainty separates winners from losers.  Companies should keep all their options in play and remain agile enough to capitalize on emergent opportunities.  That should mean a balanced mix of:

• ·      Maintaining current business through superior customer service.
• ·      Constantly searching out and implementing efficiencies to drive out cost.
• ·      Innovating to create new products and capabilities or to open new markets.
• ·      Experimenting and pursuing new business models and adapting to market shifts.
• ·      Staying competitive by staying in the game.  Don’t let your competition muscles get soft.

Play all your cards and consider folding only when it’s clear your hand will lose.  You won’t win if you don’t step up to the table and play.

Duane Grove is founder of Connect2Action, a strategy execution specialist at the intersection of employee engagement and executive leadership, igniting innovation as a lever to accelerate your growth.  Follow Duane on Twitter @connect2action and connect with him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Google+.  Learn more by visiting www.connect2action.com.

Finding Answers or Creating Solutions

I had the privilege today of spending time with a local professor of one of Colorado’s leading universities.  It’s always a privilege spending time with him and I’ve had the opportunity to guest lecture with his students.  What makes it exciting to work with him is his intense and deep-seated pursuit of education excellence.  He endeavors to find ways to not only enhance the learning experience, but to deepen it in a way that prepares his students for successful careers.  His care and concern for those entrusted to him is what education is all about.

We discussed the recurring concern he has with student’s abilities to apply critical thinking.  I reflected on these concerns in a piece I wrote over the summer (http://connect2action.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-death-of-curiosity-and-critical.html).  As we talked about his latest efforts and experiments with new technologies and techniques to improve creativity in learning, it occurred to me that there is a huge difference between finding answers and creating solutions.

With the vast resources available today, it’s far easier to find the answer to a particular question simply by looking it up.  Beginning in grade school, students discover that a quick Internet search will often yield the specific answer to nearly any question.  If that is all that is required, to what extent has learning taken place?  If searching for and retrieving an answer is sufficient to meet the academic requirement, has the student learned anything of perpetual value?  One of the things we discussed was the application of learning from one context to another.  In other words, if certain principles hold true in one context, how might they apply in another?  If you don’t have to solve the problem through analysis and deduction, you probably won’t have the skills to adapt one set of principles for a different situation.  Further, you probably won’t be able to recognize when certain principles apply and when they don’t.

 

Creating solutions requires skills far beyond finding answers.  In my experience in industry, it’s evident that many are missing this important link in the education they are receiving.  Solutions not only require foundational knowledge, but the ability to connect the dots in new and creative ways.  It requires a high degree of curiosity and a certain explorer mentality.  It’s not enough to know the answer to a problem.  Instead, value is found in knowing how the answer was derived including the many paths of failure along the way.  It also requires an ability to know when a situation is different enough that a standard answer doesn’t apply.  Adding to the complexity is the human dynamic which often distorts or changes the environment in unpredictable ways.

This is the work my professor colleague is focused on and I applaud and respect him for it.  We should encourage ourselves and others to ask ‘how’ and ‘why’ instead of simply asking ‘what’ the answer is.  Curiosity is a creative attribute and we need to cultivate and value it in our organizations.  If we hope to develop solutions to today’s problems, we need to quit relying on a simple search for answers and instead journey into that creative place within each of us.

Duane Grove is founder of Connect2Action, a strategy execution specialist at the intersection of employee engagement and executive leadership, igniting innovation as a lever to accelerate your growth.  Follow Duane on Twitter @connect2action and connect with him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Google+.  Learn more by visiting www.connect2action.com.

When Innovation Goes Horribly Wrong

The hot topic in many businesses today is innovation.  I haven’t met a client yet that isn’t talking about and actively searching for ways to innovate within their business.  However, there are times when innovation can actually do more harm than good, and not much is written on the failures that can result when initiatives aren’t implemented well.  While nearly every organization can benefit from increased focus on innovation, there are some common pitfalls that must be understood before you embark on a path to make innovation part of your organization’s approach.

Over the last 20+ years, I have designed and implemented a number of innovation initiatives within large organizations.  From those efforts, I’ve gained some valuable insight into how to make innovation a successful part of your enterprise, and equally important, where things can go down the tubes fast.  Here are some key points to remember:

1.  Simply declaring innovation as a focus area doesn’t deliver results.  Any effort to rekindle the spirit of creativity in your organization must be well planned and sustained consistently.

2.  Leadership is imperative – it’s non-negotiable.  If your entire leadership team isn’t committed to it, then stop now and address the detractors.  The fastest way to stifle innovation is to have a leader not “all in” with the intent and direction.

3.  Patience is key especially in established organizations whose success and culture has evolved around an industry reputation.  Don’t expect breakthrough ideas out of the gate.

4.  Consistently recognize ideas and their authors no matter how trivial or insignificant an idea may appear.

5.  Be flexible and adapt your efforts as they evolve.  Implementing a structured process for innovation is antithetical to creativity.  Innovation is often a messy, unstructured ecosystem and attempts to cram it into a structured process won’t get you to the next breakthrough.

Let me address each of these points now in further detail.

First, many executives have recognized that innovation is the spark they may need to ignite new growth.  When markets mature, competition stiffens, and customer buying behavior changes, it often creates a sense of urgency and a call to action.  Declaring that innovation is now a part (or a renewed emphasis) of your strategic intent is not likely to suddenly open the gates of creativity and unleash latent potential.  Time invested up-front in identifying areas where innovation is warranted helps create focus.  One executive I worked with for years often says he wants employees to innovate, but not while in the midst of a critical installation procedure on the shop floor.  Instead, if the employee identifies a better way to do something, he wants them to take note of it and then recommend the innovation where it can be evaluated and potentially introduced in future efforts.  Experimenting on a customer’s product where mistakes can be catastrophic is not what you’re looking for.

I’ve seen far too many instances where the executive office launches off on a new creative initiative only to have mid-level managers blow the whole thing off.  The dissonance created when leadership isn’t on the same sheet of music is the surest and fastest way to kill any initiative.  What’s more, even if the top-down pressure is intense, managers have subtle ways of blocking good ideas from bubbling up.  For example, a manager may suggest (or require) employees review their ideas with them before submitting.  Employees not wanting to expose themselves to criticism by their manager will likely chose to remain silent.  Therefore, if management is serious about innovation as a value, then they must create ways for employees to circumvent the chain of command and there must be clear accountability from top to bottom that holds managers who create barriers responsible. 

Another mistake organizations often make is in believing that once they’ve allowed and encouraged employees to be creative, a flood of great ideas will suddenly emerge as if the gates have been open and all the pent-up energy is unleashed.  Employees in organizations that historically didn’t reward and value new ideas will be reluctant at first to put their best and most treasured creativity on the table.  So don’t be surprised if the ideas you see initially are low-hanging fruit and not very significant.  The fact is, employees are testing the waters to see how serious management is about recognizing and valuing ideas.  If they see a pattern emerge where these simple ideas for improvement are ignored or diminished, you’ll never see the really big ones unless they emerge from a competitor an employee left for.  Patience is key especially in the beginning, and with patience, persistence.  Recognize and reward ideas in the beginning on a consistent basis, and the chances of finding the nuggets of tremendous success will slowly emerge.  Trust will grow when employees realize you're committed to them and willing to engage with them in the ideation process.

Any idea should be recognized.  Employees aren’t always motivated by financial rewards for their ideas.  In fact, I’ve found that innovation tournaments where prizes and cash are used as motivators are actually less successful than initiatives where recognition is the centerpiece.  Personal acknowledgement and recognition is essential.  What’s even more important is specific feedback on each idea.  If the idea has merit, provide feedback on why the idea is good and what you intend on doing with it.  If the idea could use further improvement, engage in a discovery process and help them refine it.  Finally, if the idea is not to be acted upon, explain clearly what was good about the idea and where it was weak.  Provide feedback on why the idea is not being acted upon, thank them for taking the time, and encourage them to keep bringing things forward.

Lastly, don’t fall in love with your innovation framework or approach!  Let employees shape how the approach will evolve and be open to making adjustments – be a learning organization in practice.  Rather than trying to put in place a ‘perfect’ approach from the beginning, get started with something basic and let it grow organically as employees engage.  Let the process that emerges become one that employees recognize as their own, rather than some brainchild of someone in the executive suite.  Be willing to make mistakes, admit them, adjust, and improve.  If employees see that you’re willing to keep trying, your persistence will pay off.  Let them see that your innovation initiative is itself open to innovation.  Every culture has unique attributes and what worked in one group may be a failure in another, so be flexible.

Duane Grove is founder of Connect2Action, a strategy execution specialist at the intersection of employee engagement and executive leadership, igniting innovation as a lever to accelerate your growth.  Follow Duane on Twitter @connect2action and connect with him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Google+.  Learn more by visiting www.connect2action.com.