Cheryl Cran helps leaders enhance their abilities to lead change, transform people and grow business. For over twenty years, she has worked with over one hundred different industries, in over one dozen countries, and with thousands of audiences worldwide to show leaders how to effectively deal with ongoing challenges such as attracting and retaining top talent, leading multiple generations, leading change in traditional organizations, transforming people to perform at higher levels, and ultimately to grow their business and increase results. Below, Cheryl writes on how we can respond to the rapid pace of change in the business world:
It takes courage to be an entrepreneur and a business leader. There are different levels of courage depending on what stage of the journey we are on. There is start up courage, there is “maintain success courage” and there is mastery courage that goes beyond established levels of “rest on your laurels” success.
It’s an interesting time to be in business: technology is speeding up the way we think, behave, and interact with each other. A recent IBM survey of CEO’s said that the focus for business in the next five years was technology, creating shared value, and daring to be open. What does that mean to leaders and business owners?
It means we all need to be able to download a new operating system–a way of thinking and being that is as fast as the technological innovation that is upon us. It means we all need to master the art of personal and professional change.
Change isn’t new–we are all living it, but what is new is that we now must have the courage to transform ourselves and the way we do things in order to exceed client expectations and create shared success for our suppliers and partners.
There are a few ways in which we can look at the opportunities of adapting to change:
- We can welcome the exciting challenge of upgrading our thinking, our creativity, and our strategies. We can look at time in a new way and focus on creating energy that helps us “flow” rather than constantly pushing back against the reality of time.
- We can shift our focus on how to consistently provided added value to our clients, suppliers, and partners by focusing on creating shared value. We all exponentially grow business and create superior results.
- We can “dare to be open” with our processes, our mission, and vision and be transparent about what we can and cannot do for our clients, while being authentic and approachable.
All of the above ways to respond to the fast pace of change changes the way we go about our business. For example, it’s no longer about whether we do or do not participate in social media, it’s how we leverage social media in a way that suits our business and our personal authentic style. When we interact with others, we think in new, evolved ways of ‘”what’s in it for them” at the forefront, while also staying focused on creating shared success: “How can we both win?”
When we prepare our proposals, when we are in our sales meetings, when we are leading our teams, we are focused on better understanding what is important to our client–who are they? what is their generational viewpoint? what do they value? what do they say on their Twitter feed? what matters to them that I can support? what can I creatively do to create increased value?
All of this rapid change definitely means we all need to be uber fast, adaptable, and flexible while maximizing creative solutions, and we are now being called to action to take responsibility in a bigger way to focus on how “we” can create success together.