OK, this is shameless self-promotion, but I have to say that I’m really looking forward to the challenges of 2010.

New Book: My friend Leo Hopf and I have finished the final rewrite on our strategy book that will be published in May or June of this year. ReThink, ReInvent, RePosition: 12 Strategies to Make Over Your Existing Business has been in the works for a while and our publisher moved it to the front burner. The timing is perfect for companies as they come out of the current recession.

New Offerings: I’ve been facilitating workshops focused on critical and strategic thinking for about six years now. I’ve added two workshops to my offerings.

• Making and Influencing Better Business Decisions is the “follow-up” to the strategic thinking workshop.
• ReThink, ReInvent, RePosition is a one or two day workshop exploring the twelve strategies and challenge of changing an ongoing business.

New Office: The southwest has appealed to me for quite some time, so I’m adding an office in Tucson, Arizona. Now all I have to do is build a book of business.

I just finished reading an article from the July-August issue of Harvard Business Review that I found  frightening and thought provoking. The article is about Global Competitiveness — but the sub-title is what caught my eye — WHY AMERICA CAN’T MAKE A KINDLE. Although the Kindle was designed in California, the important components are made in China, Taiwan, and South Korea and the entire unit is assembled in China. Consider the major components:

• The battery comes from China  — When America outsourced laptop computers to Asia we gave up on battery technology
• The display comes from Taiwan — We no longer have the expertise because we gave up flat panel LCD manufacturing to Asia.
• The wireless card is made in Korea — the Korean mobile phone industry is more advanced than ours, so the latest advances in wireless technolgy come from there.
• The injection-molded case comes from China — We don’t have much of this capability left inasmuch as we have outsourced most toys, consumer electronics, and computers to Asia.

We have focused on the short-term and “shareholder value” for the past fifteen years or so. But we have neglected to consider the long term sustainability of our manufacturing base. We have deluded ourselves into thinking that we can be a service economy (What !? Selling sub-prime mortgages to one another?) and that only we have “imagination” for the next great thing. I think that both of these assumptions are frightfully weak.

Frankly, I don’t know what to suggest except to say that all of us need to worry about our knowledge base and our collective willingness to mortgage our future for “every day low prices.” That said, there are NO short-term solutions. We need to rebuild our expertise so that we have the competitive advantage here at home to make some of the things we want to buy.

What do you think? Am I being a crabby old man and too narrow-minded or am I right to be worried about our future?

Creative destruction is the term that the economist Joseph Schumpter gave to the reality of industry mutation and innovation. These changes simultaneously provide opportunities and destroy opportunities and, consequently, some companies are destroyed and others are created. And although we can easily see the effects after the fact, the real challenge is to change in time to avoid the destruction or take advantage of the opportunities.

If we knew how fast an industry was going to change it would be easy to adapt in time — but that’s the real problem. Change seems to have accelerated in the past few years and many leaders and their organizations are taking too long to adapt. Some are waiting for “normal” conditions to reappear. Others want more data to be sure of the changes. Unfortunately, both parties are waiting in vain. All we know for sure is that the future will be different.

Take a hard look at your company or your career and the answer the hard question — “What will you HAVE to change if you are going to adapt to the evolving reality?” Then answer the even harder question — “Can you move fast enough?”

I make my living facilitating workshops for businesses and every now and then I need to give away simple tools. In these days of economic uncertainty I want my clients to make sure that they are adapting their organization’s strategy fast enough to keep up with real change. Consider using the following tool at your next meeting.

RED LIGHT / YELLOW LIGHT / GREEN LIGHT

See if you can assign “stop-light” colors to the following five statements. Reds have to be addressed right away and Yellow needs attention. However, if something is Green you may be wasting your time trying to make it greener.

1. The vision, values, and goals of our organization are reasonable in light of today’s economy and are understood across the organization.
2. We regularly “reflect on reality” to uncover real issues and trends and to anticipate the future.
3. We think critically and strategically about the future, challenging our assumptions and considering multiple points of view.
4. We are capable of timely decision making and allow mid-level managers and those “closest to the action” to influence the decision process.
5. Once a decision has been made we act effectively and efficiently to carry it out.

These are my five basic questions. What does your color pallet look like?

What questions do you ask? Or do you think the future will be like the past?

I named my business Adaptive Strategies in the early 1990s in response to an economic downturn. As they say, what’s old becomes new again. That said, the reality of our world is that we have always had to adapt. The problem is that too many people are waiting for “normal” to return. It never will.

Adapting is not an option; it separates the winners from the losers. Just think about past inflection points and those who did and did not adapt.

• Electronics in the 1950s — from vacuum tubes to transisters
• Aircraft in the 1960s — from turboprop to jets
• Autos in the 1980 — from quality vs. price to quality at every price
• Internet in the 1990s — from bricks and mortar to bricks and clicks

Think this “adaptation thing” only applies to businesses? I was a darn good Fortran programmer in the 1970s. Anybody want to hire me today?

Look at your career and your business. To what do you have to adapt? Are you adapting fast enough?

We are in times of deep uncertainty and people wonder about how to do planning during uncertain times. All you know for sure is that your strategy needs to adapt. What to do? Maybe it would help to do a bit of role playing. I’ll add a new white paper to my website by mid-week, but here’s a few role-playing tips to consider while you wait.

• Play the general and conduct war games with your best people. What do you want to accomplish and how will the terrain (economy) and the enemy (competition) react to your moves? What can you do to react to their moves?
• Play the coach and watch game films. Study your entire industry and see what they are doing. What can you learn from their successes and mistakes.
• Play the project planner and consider the elements of risk you are facing and what mitigating moves you can make and what contingengy plans you need to put in place.

I have nine more tips for you and will have them posted on my “publications” tab by mid-week. Download them if you want them (free — no e-mail address required).

But here’s the question for you. Who do you role play when you think about dealing with uncertain times?

What did your customers want from you last year? What do your cunstomers want from you today? What will your customers want from you tomorrow? Has it always been the same and, moreover, could your customers count on you to deliver?

Strategy and marketing discussions have long included the subject of “our value proposition.” And, truth be told, our value proposition was usually internally focused and often meant “we’ll try.” It was kind of soft.

What customers want is a value PROMISE that they can use to make decisions as to where to spend thier money. Not sure of the difference? What’s the value proposition of the Post Office regarding package delivery? What’s the value promise of FedEx regarding package delivery? See the difference?

A value promise may be words to you, but it is the major purchase criteria used by your customers? Does it change during “tough econimic times?” Absolutely! Ask Starbuck’s. An early value promise was “You will be seen as cool and hip if you’re seen carrying our coffee cup.” (or something like that.) During tough economic times we forego “cool and hip” and look for other promises.

So here’s your opportunity to “play consultant.” If you were asked to give advice to Starbuck’s regarding a new value promise, what would you say?

After you fix Starbuck’s, think about the value promise your company needs to provide to your customers. Want to make it personal? What’s your value promise to your employer? Is it a promise or a proposition?

I was prepping for a speech I’m giving next week and I came across a wonderful HBR article from 1997. (“Strategy Under Uncertainty,” HBR, Nov/Dec, 1997) It’s apretty long article and I’m not going to review all of it here, but I do want to comment on a way to think about adapting during these tough times.

Take the time to consider your organization’s future and the degrees of uncertainty you are facing. Then consider your options for action.

• You could do nothing and wait for the storm to pass.  (not recommended)
• You could take some “no-regrets” actions like improving communications and relationships with customers and employees. (highly recommneded)
• You could put some  low-cost options in place (like basic business education for the workforce) and prepare for the inevitable uptick in business. (highly recommended)
• If your organization is healthy you could place some “big bets” like buying a competitor and take advangtage of weaker competitors’ troubles. (depends on your real business health).

Here’s the bottom line. Sure, times are tough; but this is NOT the time to hide in a corner and whimper. Do what you can to keep your organization prepared for the future. It’s in your hands.

Many managers look upon conflict as something that should be avoided or, if it happens, should “go away” as quickly as possible. However, conflict also has the potential to expose reality and, becuase of this, has the potential to be a new source of information that can be used to adapt your strategy.

Think back to the early days of just-in-time inventory management. There was plenty of conflict over whether or not we could run a manufacturing operation with minimal inventory. But it was discussed and we found that we could, in fact, rethink the role of inventory in running a manufacturing company. The conflict exposed a new reality.

Think about today and some of the generational conflict over the use of technology. Us old guys want to send lengthy e-mail messages; “the kids” feel that a Tweet is fine. Who’s going to win? It doesn’t make any difference — the discussion will cause us to rethink the ways we communicate in buisness.

Got conflict in your organization?? Great — use it as a basis to rethink your reality. Have fun.