VUCA

Somedays back I came across a new term VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous) which supposedly characterizes present economic environment worldwide.

What might a VUCA environment mean for mindset a company adopts to deal with environment?

On one hand, it could trigger fear and lead to ‘defending your territory’ actions.

On contrary, companies could start focusing on becoming better at adapting to change.

But companies could also choose path of seeing change as an opportunity – and pursuing, shaping, and exploiting these opportunities.

Which option should your company choose?

I think answer is context specific.  Answer could be different for different companies and different for same company at different points of time.

Intuitively though, principle of ‘if you can’t avoid something it might be better to enjoy yourself at it’ might be applicable here.

So 3^rd option – of seeing ‘change as an opportunity’ – might be better go-to option in most cases during these ‘VUCA’ times.

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Sourav

North Star

You have been creating and getting plans executed over a 1 year time frame.  But given nature of task, you need focus to be much more longer term.

How do you go about creating this longer term focus while maintaining current year focus too?

You could create a ‘North Star’ – that team will work towards in longer run. Flip side of this is that only intention might not lead to actions needed today to move towards ‘North Star’.

On other hand, you could ensure alignment of yearly plans to ‘North Star’. That will ensure there is some ‘coupling’ of yearly plans to ‘North Star’.

Maybe this is a good approach to start integrating a longer term focus into yearly plans.

Once this approach has got seeded in, you might want to start building ‘scenarios’/’milestones’ – how will outcomes look like periodically – 1/2/3 years down the line? What should be focus in year 2, year 3, etc?

So while you have stronger execution plans in place for current year, you start building execution plans in place for other years – with space for periodic check-ins – to evaluate whether there’s a need for change in year 2/3 plans.

In all of this, there’s a consistent assumption. ‘If task at hand requires a longer term focus, then that focus should get reflected in your shorter term execution plans too’.

Balancing this dichotomy of shorter term v/s longer term is turning out to be very interesting. J

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Sourav

 

Transitions

Currently I am in midst of a ‘transition’ at work.  I have been thinking about ‘how do I ready myself for next role while keeping focus on current role’.

Then I realize we face a related challenge throughout our work lives and possibly our lives itself - ‘How do you manage current while preparing base for future?’. There might be some additional elements involved in a role transition – building up new relationship networks, understanding a new context, etc. But more or less approach should be similar.  It also with right focus should be doable.

Here are few thoughts on how to approach a significant role transition at work:

·         Build a short term plan – 30/60 day plan – with milestones.

·         Focus on how you could ready yourself better even before landing in role. So an element of pre-work might be necessary.

·         Keep aside time periodically (possibly every week in the first month) to reflect on what you achieved against milestones and where you need to course correct.

·         Remember 3 quadrants of onboarding – networks (trust and working partnership with stakeholders), contribution (early successes), and learning (nuts and bolts of job).

·         Prepare for being uncomfortable. In first few months, you may be passing through zones of Unconscious Incompetence (you don’t know what you don’t know) to Conscious Incompetence (you know what you don’t know) to Conscious Competence. Be intentional, stick to your efforts, and don’t let uncertainty impact you too much. It should pay off.

·         As for current role, contract with your current stakeholders on what you will achieve in your remaining few weeks/months in current role. It is important that you leave still feeling on a high.

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Sourav

Teamwork and Collaboration

How does one move an organization from a culture of ‘individual heroism’ to one of ‘teamwork and collaboration?

Let’s assume that there’s enough leadership momentum to ensure the change kicks off.  Hence there is sufficient dis-satisfaction with current state, there is a concrete enough vision of future, and first concrete steps have been identified.

Using a change management lens, you will further need to:

·         WHAT - Identify performance Metrics and Execution Plan– think of the change as a project.

o   What are some of key metrics/milestones you want to measure and track?  Given we are talking of culture change, these metrics can both be ‘observable behavior changes – in individuals/teams’ and ‘business outcomes’.

o   What’s execution plan including RACI? Do you want a week/month/quarter wise execution plan?

·         WHY - Identify changes in attitudes, beliefs, and mindsets required – Our views on teamwork and collaboration are strongly shaped by our upbringing and education. Further our workforces are diverse in nature.  It is important to converse with employees on what are prevailing attitudes, beliefs, and mindsets, identify ones that are limiting, and agree on new ones that need to be pursued.  

o   E.g. – An Individual Heroism culture might be based on belief ‘I can win it on my own’. On other hand, a more collaborative culture might be based on belief ‘2 minds and/or 2 hands always work better than 1’.

A powerful way of ‘anchoring’ this conversation is through examples of how old/new beliefs have played out in failures/successes in similar other companies/situations/sports, etc.

·         HOW - Identify Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities – employees/teams will need to make shift.

·         WHAT - Identify role of Leaders and Managers and hold them accountable for it –

o   What role should these 2 critical role holders play? Do you want them to set the tone, role model, encourage, and/or reward appropriately?

o   Frequent communication is a critical aspect of entire change process. What kind of communication plan do you want to have for leaders and managers?  ‘Examples’ and ‘success stories’ can provide further clarity and positive momentum to change process.

·         WHAT - Roles and Responsibilities – how will these change for individuals and teams?

·         WHAT – Assimilation –for any group/team which needs to be restructured as part of change efforts – there additionally needs to be a focus on their assimilation into new group/teams.

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Sourav

Onboarding Leaders

Will onboarding a leader require a different/additional/modified focus compared to onboarding any other employee?

I don’t think so. If onboarding were to be defined both as onboarding (into role) and induction (into company), then these will be required to be focused on for any new employee including a new leader.

But HR might need to play a more involved role in onboarding leaders.

In case of IC employees or managers, there are enough systems and informal feedback mechanisms in place for employee to understand how s/he is inducting into company. HR will check in on health of induction – but it is mostly periodic check ins.

In case of leaders, feedback may not come in diluted from below hierarchy. Secondly there may not be many role models leader can refer to – leadership positions may be lonely positions J. So leader does need a frame of comparison (with other successful leaders –present/previous) and a way of getting feedback (in a non –threatening space).

These 2 are specific ways in which HR can play a required more involved role in onboarding leaders.

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Sourav

The Challenger!

I remember seeing a rivetting long distance race during my school days.

Vipin led the race going into last lap. Arnab had been intentionally trailing behind him for most part of the race. Vipin could not run at his own pace as he was not sure when Arnab would overtake him. Arnab could choose his pace depending on what Vipin did.  When last lap started, Vipin looked a bit nervous and edgy. Arnab looked confident and composed. Finally Arnab won the race.

Sometimes, been second in the race is advantageous. It gives you headway to choose your pace and time your actions to beat the competition.

But will this challenger mindset always lead to success - especially in an organizational context?

The above mindset anchors challenger to competition. I think while one needs to keep an eye on competition, efforts primarily need to be anchored around consumer. If that’s done, then even when challenger becomes market leader – it can be more surefooted about how its actions translate to organization success.

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Sourav

Note: I have changed both names in this post to protect identity of individuals J

Customer Centricity

Every organization talks of need to be customer centric.

How do employees who are not in customer interfacing roles understand necessary call for action from them?  Here are some options:

·         You can obviously have leaders state asks from different teams. But this may not lead to inspiration/motivation as you are just following asks and not necessarily seeing link between ‘asks’ and final impact for ‘customer’.

·         You educate employees on how different customer/marketing related terms/concepts relate to product/service, e.g. – how 4Ps of marketing relate to your product/service, what drives repurchase decisions of your products/services.

·         Sharing customer stories from different context/scenarios - how is your product/service actually getting used in different customer scenarios?  

I find second and third option more powerful. It increases chances of ‘meaning making’ by employees – figuring out for themselves how their work could contribute to enhanced customer experience.  Since we find our own meaning - our commitment to actions will usually be higher too.

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Sourav