Profiting from Uncertainty and Change

I was looking over my bookshelf.  Yes, I still have printed books that I read; not everything has gone digital.  One of the books on the self is Profiting from Uncertainty: Strategies for Succeeding No Matter What the Future Brings by Paul J.H. Schoemaker.

Few of us have the concentration needed to apply Schoemaker's approach to scenario planning and dynamic monitoring.  Nevertheless, Schoemaker has it right.  Change (especially uncertain change) is the stuff opportunities are made of—provided you have developed a way of thinking that prepares you and your business to take advantage of whatever the future brings.  The French scientist Louis Pasteur said it in one short sentence: "Chance favors only the prepared mind."

This morning my wife was reading about the problems resulting from changes in apartment and home design—open floor plans, hardwood floors, hard surfaces like granite and the disappearance of window curtains.  Surprise—privacy has been eliminated and the hard surfaces have created a sound problem.  As a result, there is now demand for mechanical screens to close off open spaces when privacy is needed and sound absorbing panels to dampen the reverberating noise.

The point is change increases opportunities.  The key is to be prepared for it so that you can move quickly to get there with products or services to meet new needs.  You have to anticipate possible future events in order to have a basic plan in place to move faster and with more resources than the other guy.  Have a weekly lunch or a monthly evening session devoted to nothing but thinking about things that could happen and then thinking about how they could happen differently.  The mission would be to identify strategies that would allow you to benefit rather than suffer from these events.

Have fun thinking "out of the box" and strategically thinking about how you could capitalize rather than suffer from uncertain future events.  That "thinking out of the box" exercise is likely to become your vehicle for rapid response to real-life events.  Chance, Luck, Opportunity—whatever you call it, it benefits best those who are prepared.  Practice prepares you to take advantage of events that surprise others.

Fix It Before It Breaks

The notion that excellence once achieved can only be maintained through constant innovation brings us to the second of the two certainties in business and life—change is constant. The old saying "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." is dead wrong because things are always in the state of breaking.  Nothing is exempt. Everything, a chair, a desk, the technology you depend on, the materials you use, the availability of labor and capital, competitive conditions, government controls, customer preferences are all in a state of flux.  Everything and every condition, whole industries, even human life, have a life cycle. Things come into existence.  They mature and prosper.  They wane and begin a decline.  And ultimately they are replaced.

Successful businesses succeed by building one life cycle on top of another.
As one turns down, the successful organization shifts its emphasis to a new life cycle—one beginning its upswing. The successful company must always be asking “what is next?”  It must be engaged in strategic planning and intelligence gathering to plan its future—preparing to adjust and evolve—“fixing it before it breaks” by moving across from one life cycle to another.

Lead Position

Peter Drucker said that only a leading edge position allows a business to achieve results.  Anything less is at best competent which leads to marginal.  Taking a lead position with respect to a product or service does not mean bigger or more costly.  It does mean an advantageous difference in the eyes of the customer.  Excellent organizations pursue lead positions.  How can we remain different and better? That is a question that an effective team is constantly asking.  It is an opportunity to be persistently pursued because lead positions are both transitory and targets for the competition.

 It is a game of leapfrog. The excellence organization is constantly leapfrogging to a new lead position.

Two Certainties

Leave it to Benjamin Franklin to voice simple truths.  He understood the two certainties in life and business.  We are always judged by others, and change is constant.  He put it in simple terms of the day—taxes and death.   A tax being the assessment or judgment of government and death represents the ultimate human change.  Belief in the concept of Two Certainties—that we are judged by others and that change is an inevitable and a continuing part of business and life—is a prerequisite for success.  Unless you are guided by that principal, you will not experience purposeful success.   Yes, it is possible to experience accidental success—your fifteen minutes of fame—but never long-term sustained success.

For purposeful long-term success, an enterprise must be solidly anchored by a belief in the Two Certainties—we will always be judged by others and change is constant.  What we are is determined through the judgment of others, and either we purposely change to improve or natural forces erode and change us for the worse.

The Pursuit of Excellence is the Only Sound Strategy

Tom Peters in A Passion for Excellence gave us a model for achieving excellence.  Excellence, represented by the top of the pyramid in this icon, can only be achieved through the eyes of those who judge us.  We can only achieve excellence in the eyes of our customers through people who truly care about those customers.  And once we achieve excellence, we can only maintain it with constant innovation—continuing innovative change.  Accomplishing both, customer care and innovation, takes a common sense of direction (I-65 North) and in-touch leadership for which management (and communications) by wandering around has been an essential tool.

When Peters wrote A Passion for Excellence, communication tools like the Internet and web were not around.  We didn’t have websites, blogs, online meetings and collaboration tools, or business-class instant messaging systems.  Peters observed that "excellence companies" practiced Management and Communication by Wandering Around (MBWA and CBWA) to achieve an in-touch state and a sense of common direction.  Today organizations have a wonderful array of tools for communication among and between team members and customers.  But the essential element is constant communication. When team members and customers have to start questioning an organization's direction due to a lack of communication, the battle is lost.  Communication is never a one way street and it must always be honest.  It must flow in all directions and that includes communication to and from customers.   It must be consistent throughout the organization from the top to the bottom of the organization chart and that can only occur when every member of the team is confident that they understand I-65 North and the organization’s core beliefs system for traveling I-65 North.

What do I mean by I-65 North?  It is a metaphor for my philosophy about business and life. We are on a journey, one that involves constant change and where success is determined through the eyes of those who judge us. The role of a leader get people moving the same direction— to provide a clear sense of direction (North) and how we are going to get there (I-65).  It is a symbol representing an organization's goals and objectives and it's a core set of beliefs (the rules of the road) for pursuing those goals and objectives.