The Uncomfortable Truth
Over the last 2 years I’ve asked over 100 CEOs from leading Fortune 500s “what are your most crucial challenges you’re currently facing?” Across the globe, these were the common threads:
“We’re losing market share to start-ups that we never saw coming. They’re faster, cheaper and more innovative than us. They’re yielding exponential returns, whilst we’re lucky to get incremental growth. We need to radically re-invent our business!”
The uncomfortable truth is that most large organizations know what is wrong, but they’re unable to break free of their outdated ways of working and thinking.
Yesterday’s models are not only becoming quickly outdated, but outright harmful. To win in this new market demands that we reinvent how we engage our customers, organize our workforce, and develop tomorrow’s leaders today.
Prepared to Win
Some of today’s most innovative and profitable startups, where considered insane by the majority of established businesses a few years ago. A recent example is Ethereum who have been pioneering blockchain technologies to create a decentralized economy. Their worldview, ways of working and business models are considered outlandish to many established businesses, and yet they are gaining exponential market share.
How do we prepare for a radically uncertain future?
Nelson Mandela was asked how he survived in prison. His response:
“I didn’t survive, I prepared!”
Our digital devices have given us access to everything, anywhere, immediately. There was a time when businesses would begin with a 5 to 10 year strategy. In stable markets, before the internet, that may have worked, but in our fast-changing and interdependent economy that approach is way too static. 5-year planning is like a Kodak moment – a one-dimensional frozen moment, providing an unrealistic forecast of what is coming.
Preparing for counterintuitive and seemingly outlandish possibilities has introduced some fresh thinkers and unlikely strategists. Large organizations are forecasting their future with a diverse mix of strategists ranging from anthropologists, story-tellers to graphic artists. They’ve realized that to create winning strategies in today’s unorthodox economy requires different ways of thinking and solving complex problems.
The best of these new strategists have mastered the art of simplifying complexity. Eric Johnson, cognitive psychologist from Columbia University says that when we are faced with complexity and lots of information “our brains crave reducing things to 2 or 3 options”. These new strategists are able to decode complex organizational strategies quickly into tactical ways of transforming their industry. They’re able to sift through hundreds of business priorities, philosophies and to-do lists and identify the 2 or 3 mission critical actions that deliver exponential impact.
“Losers have goals. Winners have effective daily habits.”
Traditional goal setting can often lock us into a to-do list, focused on the immediate results, whereby we’ll default to completing the easiest tasks. Surprisingly, goals can be limiting. If you’re looking to not just survive, but rather to thrive in our rapidly changing world, draw on research-proven science and focus on your daily habits.
Daily Habits
The most successful business leaders in today’s economy have developed daily habits that keep them away from self-defeating ways of working. They are by no means superhuman, but they are super-consistent.
Here are the 3 winning habits:
- Morning routines: within the first 2 hours of each morning they will clarify what they want to focus on.
- Mental Models are the stories we tell ourselves about how the world works. High performing leaders and teams that are able to make consistently effective decisions under intense pressure have strong mental models.
- Ask great questions that challenge your current beliefs and assumptions, such as “what could derail your organization over the next 10 years? What if you only had 3 – 6 months to fix this challenge?”
Stop and ask the uncomfortable questions, before someone else does.
Further reading:
- Tools of Titans: The tactics, routines, and habits of billionaires, icons, and world-class performers. Tim Ferris explores the winning formulas of turbo-charged performance
- Smarter, Faster, Better: The Secrets of Being Productive. Charles Duhigg shows the science behind our daily habits, mental models and decisions.
- Why Simple Wins: Escape the Complexity Trap and Get to Work That Matters. Lisa Bodell explores how complexity is killing businesses ability to move fast, whilst simplicity is the new competitive advantage.
Akiva Beebe
For more than 20 years he has grown different businesses, from Fortune 500s to tech start-ups. As regional director for Center for Creative Leadership, ranked number four globally for executive leadership development, he guides large organisations to thrive in turbulent markets by replacing their outdated business models.