Opportunism

Opportunism--there may be a lot of room for it--will pay off through speed off the mark and excellence in execution.

Richard King , Managing Partner, UK, observes that, like London buses, recession and business opportunities often come along at the same time! Virgin Chairman Richard Branson is currently talking to a group of interested parties about a possible bid for London's second largest airport, Gatwick. The UK Competition Commission has ruled that Gatwick's current owners, BAA, may have to sell the airport because of their market domination. BAA also owns London's Heathrow and Stansted airports. In these difficult times, Gatwick may turn out to be worth a lot less than its £2.5bn market valuation. So, it's "opportunity knocks" in recessionary times for Sir Richard, who never needs asking twice, and a big challenge for Virgin to put together the consortium needed to pull off what would be a major coup, for Virgin and for all victims [Richard's word] of the current London airports' customer service!

Madeleine McGrath has unearthed an opportunistic proposal from the New Zealand Institute (NZI) to their Government that may have ramifications for business leaders. Previous recessions have seen unsettled expat New Zealanders move back to the Australasia region, but too many have chosen to settle in Australia rather than coming all the way back to their homeland, says the NZI. The intention this time is to compete aggressively to encourage talented Kiwis to return home and deploy their skills in support of their own nation's economy. (See the NZI's October 2008 paper, "Economy on the Edge.") How many employers see their current employees as an asset rather than an expense when times are tough, let alone their former employees? Yet businesses often lose their best people to the competition, and this downturn may be the chance to get some of them back!

Lessons for us all?

Are you thinking laterally enough about opportunities and needs that are being manifested in your marketplace?

Are you thinking laterally enough about your talent pool, and using the recession as an opportunity to attract the very best?

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Visibility

March toward the sound of the guns. MBWA (Managing By Wandering Around). People have to see who they are working for and who they are dealing with.

Tom Peters says "Treble Your MBWA": "One of my favorite quotes, from Carolyn Lamb ... goes like this: 'A year from now you may wish you had started today.' Yes, today many of us wish we had 'wildly' 'over' invested in those employee-vendor-client-community relationships when the market was heading North and there was a little slack in the system. Well, perhaps we didn't, but ... it really is never too late. ... Work the damn phones. Keep working the damn phones. Show up. Keep showing up. Call clients and suppliers, ask them how things are going, and how you can help. This is not about sales (directly), but about 'showing up'-taking time from your busy affairs to offer assistance of any sort. (E.g., offer up your network ... Etc.) This is even more important with our employees. 'Over'inform--the rumors are invariably worse than reality. 'Over'do your MBWA ..." (Read the complete blog entry.)

Richard King has this story for us all: "Like most business leaders these days, the CEO of a specialist manufacturing group I know well has planning and implementing cost reductions right up there at the top of his jobs list! Last week I heard that one of his Directors had missed a committed savings milestone. This delinquency had come to light in the week before the Director concerned had booked a family holiday. Rather than reacting immediately and risk spoiling the whole family's break, the CEO lived with his frustration until after the holiday. When the Director returned, he was invited to an offsite one-to-one session with the CEO--on his first morning back. I'm sure there was some pretty straight talking done, in private, between the two of them! How do I know this story? The Director told it to me because he knew I was looking for stories of leaders facing up to the unpleasant realities of this recession. He especially wanted to express his appreciation for the considerate way his CEO had treated him.

Lessons for us all?

Are you tracking numbers of customer, prospect, and networking contacts in your regular reporting and recognizing those people who are working hardest on relationships?

Have you adopted/recommended "face to face" as the management medium of choice for delivering tough news to employees, colleagues, and partners?

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Transparency

Be absolutely straight with people, especially those at the front line. People who play the blame game in any way, shape, or form are out of here!

"Our people are our most important asset," or so says many an annual report. Val Willis, a U.S.-based Facilitator, spotted a great example of a business facing up to the challenges of these tough times, but staying true to its people principles. In San Antonio, Texas, the downturn forced Toyota to close their plant for three months. The dilemma they faced was how to handle this in regard to their 4,500-person workforce. According to Financial Week, Toyota is redeploying their workers on community work, retraining, and education classes in lieu of layoffs. "This was the first chance we've really had to live out our values," said Latondra Newton, general manager of Toyota's Team Member Development Center. "We're not just keeping people on the payroll because we're nice. At the end of all this, our hope is that we'll end up with a more skilled North American workforce."

In a second example, Ruth Smith, a UK Facilitator, explains how a retail client had set about responding to their constantly changing market conditions by instigating weekly management/front line sales reviews to pick up and respond to trends in customers' purchasing habits quickly. At the meetings, they make instant decisions on changes to promotions and product offerings in order to capitalize on customer demand. This week-by-week approach had led to criticism by staff of so-called "knee jerk and reactive" managers, and changes were often resisted by front liners until they were brought in on the review meetings. Once managers took the time to engage everyone in the process, rapid adjustment and constant change have become normal business.

On tpwireservice.com, we find this Daniel Goleman article entitled "Tea and Empathy" from strategy+business. Goleman identifies what he calls the crisis of accountability that organizations are facing, and contends that transparency, social and emotional learning, and leadership must take a much higher profile on the leader's agenda.

Lessons for us all?

Are there any ways in which you can use layoff situations to build and strengthen your workforce and your culture?

Are you doing everything you can to keep all employees informed of your emergency plans and strategies?

How tuned in are you to the emotional temperature of your business?

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Demeanor

Banish "gloomy" from your persona, even if it kills you! But remember, "sunny" is pretty stupid, too. Who do you think you're kidding?

As we watch the media pundits and commentators pick holes in the world's politicians' brave attempts to address the current economic mess, a new book from one of Tom's Cool Friends, Raj Setty, is a welcome ray of light. The book's title is Upbeat, and it contains many gems of inspiration to encourage a positive attitude during tough times. At the outset, Raj sounds off at the insidious impact that negative conversations have on your life. If every conversation that you have begins with a depressing catalogue of doom and gloom, not only are you setting a depressing tone, you are also wasting that time. In that context, banning gloomy conversations about things over which you have no control becomes an immensely sensible, positive resolution. Think about it!

UK Executive Coach David Pilbeam helps to shed more light on what leaders can do to engender a positive attitude in their people and sustain an upbeat atmosphere in the workplace. "People always feel better and can perform better when they are in situations where they can use their strengths," says David. So he recommends that leaders take the time to think, or discover, what the strengths of their key team members are, and to reframe work projects so that people can use their natural strengths and the business can benefit from them. Productivity, performance, and personal confidence all go up.

Lessons for us all?

Are you doing your best to stay out of negative and unproductive conversations? How about stimulating the opposite?

Are there any ways in which you can reframe what your people are working on in order to make better use of their strengths?

Consider appointing a "mood monitor" to give you direct feedback when your demeanor is becoming too gloomy (or vice versa!).

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Paradox

Have a positive mental attitude AND be ready for the worst.

Mike Neiss , U.S. Facilitator, reports that he recently attended a meeting at a client company whose market had just tanked. Rated the number one place to work in their industry by Fortune, this business is in Fast Company's top fifty innovative companies in the world, and its latest product line is winning rave reviews from publications ranging from Wired to BusinessWeek. The COO announced that it was essential to make an immediate workforce reduction, and because the company was already quite lean, the reduction would really test the mettle of the organization. They discussed how to act in strict accordance with the core values of the company and how they would ensure the business reasons for the cuts were communicated to everyone. They were concerned about the impact on the essence of what had made them a great company, and the heavy additional burden that would be transferred onto those who remained. The COO then revealed the information they would be sharing with employees about the company's future plans, including continued funding of R&D projects, investments in employee development, and improving the infrastructure of the business. "This was clearly not just PR spin," Mike reflected afterwards, "but actual plans with real numbers coming directly from the top officers of the company." The confidence that they would emerge from this recession a stronger company "with their soul intact" was obvious. Mike left the meeting impressed with their commitment to be absolutely honest with their workforce and inspired by their confidence about the future. Not a word was said about creating or protecting "shareholder value," but Mike is convinced that market value will increase as a result of the changes.

Necessity and hard times often go hand in hand with invention. With this in mind, Helen Green, another of the UK team, reports on a letter she saw in the London Times. The writer, British Academic Brian Kettell, drew attention to the explosion of innovation that took place during, or shortly after, the Great Depression of the 1930s ... "frozen food, jet engine and Sellotape (1930), electron microscope (1931), Polaroid and parking meter (1932), FM and stereo recording (1933), cat's eyes [retroreflective safety device] and Monopoly (1934), canned beer, nylon and radar (1935), voice recognition systems (1936), photocopying (1937) and ballpoint pens and instant coffee (1938)" ... the list goes on and on!

For more ideas about how to stimulate innovation, don't forget an all-time favorite, Tom's "Pursuit of Luck," which gives you lots of ideas about ways to break free from your current thinking patterns.

Lessons for us all?

Have you been back through your list of cutbacks to be sure that you are not draining off your future lifeblood, personal or business?

Are there any uncomfortable changes you have been avoiding (be honest!) that you really should act on now?

Have you considered making a list of the things you will be most proud of achieving in 2011?

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