| FROM OUR EXPERIENCE |
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| Is this crisis period an opportunity for improving management processes in an entrepreneurial company? II |
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Last month we invited two experienced professionals, Adrian Stanciu and Silviu Hotaran, to share their opinions regarding the crisis and the benefits this period has on companies. This month we asked Chris Nel, one of Human Invest's international partners, to give us his opinion on the positive side of the downside.
Chris Nel, co-founder & owner of Quest Leadership Ltd.
http://www.questleadership.co.uk/
Die, survive or thrive - Your choice...
Charles Darwin the evolutionist said, "It is neither the strongest nor the most intelligent of the species that survives but those that are most capable of adaptation". This is my current retort to the merchants of recessionary doom and gloom. Stop whining ... adapt and thrive!
In an increasingly disruptive world I believe that adaptive capability is the only sustainable competitive advantage an organisation can have. Developing it is what I love to do.
Organisations that are capable of adaptation will thrive in the uncertainty and chaos. Their less adaptive counterparts are stunned into a catatonic stupor by the rate and ferocity of the disruption. To varying degrees panic, fear, anger, denial/complacency, over management, short-termism, indecision, risk phobia, confusion etc... all contribute to their inability to mount an effective response to the disruption. Think of your own examples there are quite literally thousands. From the failure of our military to mount an effective counter insurgency, the inability of our political systems to acknowledge and react to youth disengagement / domestic insurgency / democratic disenfranchisement, bank regulation, GSM agreements for mobile phone operators, lead in semiconductors, the denial of climate change evidence, the inability of our schools to adequately prepare our children for anything other than production line servitude... The hall of shame is very, very long. I have highlighted some of the better well known public examples but I am equally anxious about the lack of adaptiveness shown by our businesses, large and small.
So, the question for '09 is to what extent is your organization adaptive? Now is a really good time to observe what you see going on around you. You may be seeing the cracks that are normally papered over with abundance.
The greatest contemporary risk to us all, I will argue, is the somewhat consoling but mistaken belief that the current crisis is affecting everyone equally and that fundamentally there is nothing wrong with our organization, we just need to ride the storm out.
Well I've got [bad] news for those who maintain such comforting delusions ... Some people, (aka your competitors), are going to do very well out of this crisis. Why ... because they are more adaptive than you are. I want to help you to get over it and do something about it whilst you still have the choice.
So what is adaptive capability and how will you know if you are adaptive or not?
As someone who coaches adaptiveness in individuals, teams and organizations, I would encourage you to look for three abilities as you walk round your business. The ability to lead, the ability to create awareness and the ability to learn. More of these later. Let me start by explaining a bit more about Adaptive Capability:
Adaptiveness is a very close relative of innovativeness, which Rensis Likert described as "...not an outcome that can be demanded nor a process that can be imposed ... It is the consequence of frustrated human desire." So it is with organisational Adaptive Capability. You cannot demand that your people become more adaptive, they have to have high aspirations for your organisation and be aware of the threat to it. (Both of which are your responsibility as a leader of the organisation to nurture and communicate.) Only then will they start to behave in an adaptive way.
How will you know adaptability when you see it? Actually you will probably feel it first... Adaptive environments are somewhat uncomfortable and alien places for conventional 'managers'. Typically they have non-homogeneous staff, a healthy disrespect for hierarchy, focussed anxiety about the competition (NB not the Boss), low levels of permission looping, strategically aligned and purposeful decision making at all levels. Mediocre successes are despised by all, altruistic risk taking is encouraged and celebrated and any failures result in learning for all not witch hunts and disciplinary action of individuals.
Let's have a closer look at these three:
Leadership
There is an old adage that the stoppage is always at the top of the bottle. I agree and subscribe to the viewpoint that there are fundamentally no rotten children/soldiers/staff only deficient parents/officers/leaders. Leaders of adaptive organisations act in such a way that their people want to adapt. I.e. they are well led, not over managed. Is your organisation well led at all levels? Can you and your fellow managers get others to want to make those vital adaptive changes? Will they struggle for the proposed changes? What response do you get from your staff when you describe transformation? Does your gut tell you are wasting your time? Do you find yourself resorting to a (very not you) draconian management style to push through change? It is not organisations that are change resistant; it is poorly led people within organisations that counter change efforts.
In the good times ... (i.e. those days past when you could still afford it), did you and your fellow executives take leadership development seriously? Really seriously?? Or was it an HR driven, bums on seats, training initiative? Did you personally mentor and encourage young leaders. Did you make time and resource available for it? Or... Were you too busy making the numbers? A critical ingredient of your adaptive capability may well be missing.
Awareness
To what extent is the cold truth of your situation denied? Either consciously or unconsciously... As M Scott Peck said "The tendency to avoid painful realities is so omnipresent in human beings that it can properly be considered a characteristic." I find it somewhat reassuring that in unconsciously avoiding tough situations we are not being defective merely human. One of the defining characteristics of high performing teams is their superlative situational awareness. They are therefore superhuman as a collective. They can face up to harsh realities in a way and at a speed that individuals rarely (never?) could.
Does the team you are part of enable excellent organisational situational awareness? Or do you drive each other into defensive posturing and non-collaborative stovepipes?
The fear of failure and its associated truth avoidance is a massive barrier to genuine awareness. Without which the appetite for adaptation is absent. How long did it take you and your colleagues to recognize and accept the consequences of the banking crisis for your business? For how long was this someone else's problem? It won't affect us too badly syndrome? How good was/is your competitor and market place intelligence. How many times a week do your people tell you that you're wrong? How often do people admit that they screwed up? To what extent do people in your organisation fear the boss more than the competition?
In 1939 Winston Churchill set up in the Ministry of Defense, the Statistics Section. The sole purpose of this section, headed by Lord Cherwell, was to present the Prime Minister with the unvarnished truth. Any section sycophants were summarily fired. So pervasive was the culture of spin, interpretation and sucking up to the boss, Churchill knew he needed a way of getting good information. Or as General Norman Schwarzkopf said, "I am not a funny man, I tell jokes very badly. However, an amazing thing happens the moment I put on those Generals stars everyone laughed at my jokes!"The next time you're listening to market conditions / results / forecasting / budget report please remember that.
Learning
Finally, I'd invite you to consider your ability as an organisation to benefit from the experiences you are having. Tom Peters remarked, "In my experience the best indicator of future success is ... does the organisation learn from or hide its failures?" Well, do you? I don't mean the normal witch-hunts / blame apportionment that typically follows corporate discomfiture. I am referring to an organisational ethos of learning. Embracing malfunctions, fiascos, letdowns, and disappointments for what they can teach us rather than seizing the opportunity to snipe at 'colleagues' and moan about bureaucracy, processes & resource constraints.
The attitude to learning in an adaptive organisation is 180 different to that of the typical corporation. How good a skier would you be if you never let yourself fall over? How quickly would our children learn to cycle if we never let go of the back of the saddle? Failure is a key part of human learning. I'm not suggesting we let 5 year olds out on the freeway, but the job of parents and I contend, leaders of businesses in uncertain surroundings, is to create an environment where exploration and testing are encouraged and 'crashes' are a chance to sharpen our game.
In my experience there are very few bad businesses or organisational leaders. Most of them are however very human. Dealing with uncertainty and chaos is very uncomfortable for most of us. Knowing that I hope you will do two things: First give yourself a reassuring pat on the back. Acknowledge your human-ness ... Then kick yourself - hard... If not you, who will foster the enduring adaptive capability required to ensure that the organisation you care about thrives in, not lurches its way through, the first of many 21st Century crisis. Will you look back with pride on 2009 - 20?? a time of corporate renaissance or will it be a painful memory swept under a rather threadbare boardroom carpet.
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Human Invest is a Premier League company in the arena of training and organizational development consultancy services, present on the Romanian market since 1998.
We are recognized for conceiving and implementing programs which offer managers an authentic experience towards improving their leadership performances, and thus we support companies in becoming more and more engaged in delivering excellent services for their clients.
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