Executive coach to the most passionate and transformative leaders in business and the CEO of Transcend.
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If we’ve learned anything from the past three years, it’s that massive change can happen in an instant without warning. We’ve also learned that agility and resilience are must-have business assets to thrive in high-change environments. The writing is on the wall—rapid shifts are here to stay and volatility is increasing. From geopolitical, cyber, financial and technological, the threats to businesses are increasingly exponential. Many executives are losing sleep managing the immediacy of these challenges while executing the daily needs of the business. However, few are rethinking how they can sustainably restructure or re-resource their organizations to exceed challenges and leverage opportunities for growth.
Creating high-growth organizations in our new era begins with the adoption of an executive lens that moves toward leveraging the unpredictable rather than defending against it. By proactively embedding change and innovation resources, executives can stimulate an ecosystem that outperforms industry standards even in the most trying of times. Businesses that experience the challenge of simultaneously delivering real-time and long-range strategic executions while mitigating external volatility have a serious continuity gap that requires immediate attention. Here are four executive recommendations to ensure you are creating a competitive advantage by closing these gaps and upgrading your business resilience and agility.
1. Reimagine organizational design.
Organizational design’s most powerful pillar is no longer efficiency but rather an exercise in driving innovation and growth during volatility. Designs that omit proactive innovation, change and project management resources at scale are using old models to solve modern challenges and continuous business performance.
Appropriately resource at upper leadership levels for continuity in real-time and long-range strategy implementation. Organizational design that reinforces the future state of the business will generate the most growth and value by connecting tomorrow’s progress to today’s opportunities. If your executives and senior leaders are missing bandwidth to drive the future of the business, it’s a critical sign that your structures and resourcing need immediate attention.
Lean framework operations are being battered by the sheer volume of external threats and interruptions. At a time when continuous business disruptions are the new norm, executives must reconsider their operational structures within lean frameworks. The new reality is that providing ample resources to manage unforeseen change is necessary to maintain efficiency at scale. The predictability that enabled record-breaking efficiency during the past decade is gone. Adapt quickly using permanent agility resources to limit team burnout and restore the service your customers expect.
2. Reshape talent composition and engagement.
Hire talent ahead of the business to engage growth, agility and resilience. Embedding people who have capabilities that exceed your current environment is the single greatest enabler to navigating volatility and inspiring innovation. Understand where your business is headed and recruit the people who have already been there and delivered exceptional value. Attracting key players from companies ahead of your curve will strengthen continuity for the business of today while simultaneously building what’s next. As an added bonus, your existing A players will stay sharp as you surround them with inspiring professionals whose capabilities are in lockstep with the future of the business.
A diverse team will generate better solutions in times of challenge. How you diversify, cross-pollinate and assemble talent in critical areas of need is your secret sauce for establishing competitive advantage. Design and embed detailed solution processes that leverage diversity of thought, expertise and experience within your organization. Surrounding a core challenge with your brightest and most diverse talent is fuel for engagement and innovation.
3. Deploy predictive and transparent data to lessen the pain.
Data harvesting is nothing new; however, few enterprises master the use of deploying leading indicator versus lagging indicator data across their executive decision-making practices. Ensure all executives and senior leaders have the most robust data dashboards possible for their organization and the enterprise. This may require embedding external industry data sources to ensure the best view of business impacting dynamics. Data-focused executives make better decisions in times of volatility and crisis, and data transparency aids challenging conversations across the executive team regarding resourcing, growth and service.
Use data to plan with a “scenario mindset” that informs the quarter and year ahead. When faced with profitability decisions that restrict resources, challenge teams to find solutions that preserve innovation and growth to ensure future competitive advantage. Pausing the forward motion of the business due to volatility begins a tailspin that can be difficult to correct. Not all resources in the business are created equal, so ensure the executive unit is aligned on priorities to enable speed and agility when it is needed most.
4. Assemble transformation expertise to get the win.
Of all executive tendencies, under-resourcing change processes and innovation implementations is the most damaging to creating a resilient and agile enterprise. Executing change and innovation is a muscle that requires practice, coaching and consistency. Growth at scale within the modern business environment requires a fresh evaluation of the expertise needed and the appetite for growth investment. Therefore, organizations that are resourced to be agile, resilient and innovative will inevitably win.
The DNA of growth creation is evolving, and it requires executives to proactively tackle the innovation and change gaps within their organization to increase resilience and agility. Leading-edge executives will win the talent war, resource their organizations toward sustainable future execution and reshape how diverse collaboration solves their greatest challenges during volatility. The path forward is clear, and it’s time for more executives to activate within the new paradigm of growth within modern business.
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