Adaptive Strategies Blog

My friend Brad Shorr (Brad Shorr) came up with an interesting idea a couple of weeks ago. Let three bloggers riff on the same topic for a while and see what happens. We picked a topic near and dear to all of your hearts (and wallets) – BUSINESS UNCERTAINTY.

Kay Plantes knows a LOT about business model innovation. How does she see uncertainty?

Fred Schlegel has a marketing mindset. What opportunities does he see in uncertainty?

Finally, I spend a lot of client time thinking about the skills of emerging leaders. Why might uncertainty be good for them?

Times are uncertain – what a great time to be a leader!

OK, the economy is in the dumper. Healthcare is up for grabs. Chinese manufacturers are taking over your industry. And your bank is cutting  your line of credit.

Bad?  Maybe.

Brutal facts? Absolutely!

So now what do you do? Well, dear friends, you do what leaders throughout time have done. You spend some time and think about some “no regrets” moves.  You spend some time and think about options you might “buy.” And you think about some possibilities of bold moves. The bottom line is that during uncertain times you stop acting out of habit and take the time to THINK! I have eight skills for you to develop to improve your leadership thinking skills. Here are four; the other four will come in a few days.

THINK about observing : You can clearly see the problems facing your organization; can you see the opportunities that comes along with the problems? If you and all of your competitors are facing the same decline in sales, can you see a new value promise? What clues are on the horizon that inform your thinking about the structure of your business model?

THINK about imagining: The heart of strategy is to “do things differently or to do different things” for competitive advantage. The key word is “different” and the key skill is imagining. All of us had great imaginations as a small child (remember how you could use a big cardboard box to make a “fort”?) but many of us have neglected that skill while we searched for the perfect answer. It’s time to get back in touch with that little kid in the back of your mind.

THINK about challenging: Does uncertainty seem especially frightening because some of your assumptions are failing? Maybe it’s time to challenge all of your strategic assumptions. What assumptions are you holding about customer loyalty? What assumptions are you holding about your profit model? Your competitors will challenge all of your assumptions – shouldn’t you?

THINK about reflecting: Do you take the time to sit back and consider you marketing message and business model during these uncertain times? Or are you too darn busy doing “something” because activity feels good. (Be honest, does thinking look like work in your organization? If you’re like many others, you opt to “look busy” rather than get caught in quiet contemplation.)

Four more leadership thinking skills to come in the next post. In the meantime, tell me how you see leaders using uncertainty to get ahead. Louis Pasteur, the famous French biologist, was once accused of being lucky. His response was that he was lucky – but he was prepared for it. Are you?

I have been fascinated with the quote attributed to the French biologist, Louis Pasteur, that “chance favors a prepared mind.” Consequently I wrote a book in 2006 with Jeanie Egmon from Northwestern University that focused on the skills (eight in all) we saw in leaders who were prepared for the future. (Go to www.PreparedLeader.com for an overview of the book and our thoughts behind it.) Anyway, given the level of uncertainty I see across the economy, I decided to return t that theme for a number of posts about getting ready for the future.

Here’s the challenge: Are you ready for the challenges and opportunities in your path from today to tomorrow?

Let me start with comments about the prepared mind skill of challenge.

We are pretty comfortable at challenging others’ thoughts and decisions. We’re sure that many authority figures (bosses, coaches, legislators, generals, etc.) are intellectual wimps and that we could do their job better than they. Sometimes we’re right. However, we’re often judging based on our biases, not our own ability to think well.

Everyone has opinions; are your opinions build on a solid foundation?How can you assess your ability to think and, consequently, challenge yourself to improve?

Try using Benjamin Bloom’s levels of cognitive ability. (Bloom was a U of C professor who studied thought processes that are used in learning. Google him to learn more.)

Bloom concluded that there are six levels of thought. Moving from the lowest to the highest they are: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. At what level is your thinking? What underpins your opinions? Try the following example and then create some of your own.

Most of us know that General Motors is in a world of hurt, so let’s use their problem to understand the levels of thinking and to test our thinking.

• Knowledge – can you recall specific information? What are the products and services provided by GM? What nameplates have been eliminated? Which remain?
• Comprehension – can you state a problem in your own words? What is the major problem faced by GM and its unions as it emerges from bankruptcy?  
• Application – can you apply concepts to the “real world?” How has the labor contract trapped both parties? How does this apply to your workplace?
• Analysis – can you distinguish between facts and inferences? How is the  situation at Ford different from the situation at GM?
• Synthesis – can you put the parts together to form a whole, with emphasis on proposing alternative solutions? Can you design an organizational structure and new “social contract” that is agreeable to both management and unions at the new GM?
• Evaluation – can you judge and evaluate actions and outcomes based on a defined set of criteria? Maybe you love the government’s approach? Maybe you hate it. Here’s the tough question: What would you do to “fix” GM?

Maybe it was unfair to test your thinking about GM? What if I asked a similar set of questions about the war in Afghanistan? (Many of us hate it; but do we understand it?) What about your company’s strategy? (Why think about it? I’m sure “they” have everything under control.)  And then there are your views of our health care system. (“I’m sure it’s broken, but they need to fix it without raising taxes. It’s not my problem”) Hmmmm.

I now challenge all of us to move up the scale of Bloom’s levels of thought. We have plenty of knowledge and most of us are pretty good at comprehension. However, if my view of the world is representative of reality, we are sorely lacking in the widespread capability of the higher levels of this taxonomy.

The world of sound bites and “factoids” is a sterile world when it comes to good examples of the skills needed to synthesize and evaluate. What do you see? Are you worried?

Today’s New York Times has an OpEd piece by Paul O’Neill (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/06/opinion/06oneill.html?th&emc=th) that made me sit back and think about looking at problems from multiple points of view. Many of the articles about our “broken” health care system lead off with a statistic about the incredible cost of the system (more than any other country in the world on a basis of percent of GDP) and then launch into expensive, big-picture solutions to consider. And everyone asks “Where will we get the money?”

O’Neill’s article was about the small-picture. Infections, medication errors, patient falls and other preventable problems add up to about a trillion dollars of annual “waste.” And the kicker is that we already know how to reduce every one of these without a massive new program! And here is the kicker in his article: “What policymakers tend to forget is that only the people who do the work can make this happen. Legislation can’t do it, regulation can’t do it, infection-control committees can’t do it, financial incentives and disincentives can’t do it. ….. Where it works, the common denominators are strong leadership and a committed work force.”

And for those of us with a bit of grey hair, this has the ring of déjà vu. When the U.S. auto industry was shocked by the quality of cars coming from the Japanese auto companies we were “shocked” to find out that it was not fancy automation and wiz-bang technology, it was leadership and a dedicated (and trained!) workforce that made the biggest difference.

I’m not saying that we don’t have to proceed with big, system-wide issues; but maybe the first place to start is to fix the problems we already know how to fix. And the solution can be found in the team we already have. But it will take real leadership and that will not to be found in a government program developed by people far removed from the real problems. Improving the health care system or any system often comes down to plain hard work.

Now go visit your boss and demand some real leadership.  The future of your organization is at stake.