Leading a Business during transformation and disruptive changing
Running and managing a business during a massive transformation is like flying a plane while building it. You have to launch new businesses and offerings frequently while meeting your revenue goals with existing offerings. It is an art and science. Art in the sense that how do you acquire new customers for brand new offerings which are based on breakthrough innovation and are a new market category in itself. Science as in how do you deliver sustained growth for your existing offerings with changing market dynamics and customer innovation requirements spanning from Cloud, AI, Quantum to Blockchain, and so on.
Few leadership principles have helped me during these times which may help you as businesses look to transform themselves during the Covid crisis and beyond.
1.Win with others. Business is often conceived as a zero-sum war against competitors, but for transformative times it is much more valuable to focus on finding win-win scenarios and opportunities for reciprocity to foster a healthy ecosystem and partnerships. Understand not only what your company can deliver to customers, but what it could deliver to other members of an ecosystem as a partner, supplier, source of talent, or convener. In some cases, even direct competitors can create such arrangements, as IBM and AWS have done in their shared bid to promote hybrid cloud launch of Cloud Pak for Data on AWS quick start. As one customer put it this way: “It is incumbent on me to have a view to lifting my whole industry and all our partners. I can’t win in a barren desert.” Read more about partnerships in the Cloud and AI world here in my previous blog.
2. Fail fast, scale fast. The idea of failing fast has been fashionable for some time with digital-born and silicon valley start-up companies. What many leaders miss is the idea of scaling fast. Once ideas or products start to gain traction, leaders need to make sure that they move beyond pilots and are scaled so they can have an impact on the market and customers. That means making a decision based on imperfect information and investing boldly behind it, taking a portfolio approach on a few significant bets. As we did with Cloud pak for data and AI portfolio business based on redhat openshift. Scaled the business to 500+ customers in 18 months timeframe.
3.Lead by doing. The idea that “leaders lead, managers review, doers do” no longer applies. Leaders need to be involved with the teams driving innovation and with the people interacting with customers so that they can play a first-hand role in shaping and speeding up the change journey. As one of my favorite sales leader said, “I don’t wait for the review where it’s backward looking. I get out there with the team so I can share my vision where the work is happening.”
4.Hire for the character, train for mastery. In today’s world, it’s especially important to hire for the intangibles: integrity, good judgment, creativity, and entrepreneurialism. Apart from some core skills, Look for the integrators, the disruptors, the innovators, the steadfast deliverers. We need all of them more than ever.
5.Be the purpose champion. In the transition to the new post-covid-19 world, purpose matters more than ever. It is the glue that helps integrate all the elements described in this article. As employees grapple with uncertainty and adjust to major change, leaders are called upon to communicate with clarity, to provide continuity, and to empower the organization with a sense of purpose. And they must translate that purpose into action. Leaders must speak loudly and often about why the company exists and why employees should dedicate their professional lives to their success.
6.Bring your humanity to work. It’s important that leaders leave behind such leadership stereotypes as the “confident decision-maker” and the “leader from the front.” What employees and others are looking for is an authentic and fully accessible human being. This means sharing much more of yourself — and not just your successes — with many more people. Leaders must engage with their teams and act with compassion and understanding. They must make themselves more visible, available, and accessible through ask me anything(ama) days with teams, joint working customer meetings, and live brainstorming sessions.
7.Build an Inclusive and Diverse Culture. What does an inclusive and innovative culture look like? It’s one in which all team members — regardless of tenure, title, or personal background — have the opportunity to contribute their points of view during meetings and discussions. In fact, leaders at companies with inclusive cultures expect all team members to contribute. These leaders set the conditions that encourage participation. They take the time to hear all points of view before making a decision, and they don’t tolerate retribution against people who offer dissenting opinions; instead, those opinions are explicitly valued. This combination of diversity and inclusion is what changes organizational cultures and unlocks the real value.
