How to Build Your Advantage in Uncertainty

As we come towards the end of the year and reflect on 2020, it has become clear that there are some companies that have done a particularly good job at leaping to the next playing field while others have floundered in the face of crisis. What did these companies do to strive in uncertainty?

The silver bullet that these successful companies all have is a finger on the pulse of crisis along with robust sensing skills needed to differentiate value creating skills from value destroying trends. The truth of the matter is that these skills and capabilities aren’t a new need, but an underutilized skill. The market over the past decade has provided a cushion for companies to fall back on conventional planning and strategy. Right now, companies that have been comfortable for the past decade are struggling to stay afloat. Knowing when to move, identifying the signal for a shift, and being able to act on that change, is just as important as being prepared for uncertainty.

While you don’t need to reinvent the wheel, you do need your team to become better at detecting, communicating and assessing risks. They also need to get better at being decisive by defining what success looks like given the new parameters and limitations of the present environment. Your team needs to re-align on vision and goals, building towards a North Star.

Action Item:

Have a team meeting to re-forcast your North Star, and redefine what success looks like in the present environment.

Right now, companies should double down on resilience, having contingency plans in place which can mitigate the effects of shocks and enable their team to be agile in the face of change. Top leader’s right now are using their sensing skills to identify opportunity hidden in disruptive forces. Companies that have built advantage in uncertainty make brainstorming a regular practice, dedicating 2-3 hours a week minimum to brainstorming.

In your brainstorming, consider brainstorming for questions first, rather than answers, because this will make it easier to push past cognitive biases and venture into uncharted territory. In remote brainstorming, there is a unique advantage where you avoid the common pitfalls of group think where individuals tend to think alike when they are together, only developing one common solution. Instead, as you and your team brainstorm in relative isolation, you will think differently and generate different ideas. Have each individual on your team brainstorm on their own, while walking or in a creative headspace, and then pass their ideas on to another teammate to build off of. Do this a few times before brining the entire team back together to share their ideas with one another. This process will enable you and your teammates to brainstorm in the comfort of your own head, without an entire room of people watching you think, while at the same time putting your ideas out there to get refined and built upon. These high performing, innovative companies are also putting 20% of their resources towards innovation according to the Harvard Business Review, As a leader, its important to leave a mindset of knowing and go into one of finding out, of exploration because your internal mindset should match the fluctuations of your external environment for success.

Right now, you have to standup and reinforce the culture of your team while supporting a shift towards new initiatives that will keep your company afloat in crisis. All initiatives must be devoted to bold, long term ambition and north stars, effectively grounding your company.

Actions Items:

Active leadership is fundamentally crucial during these times of uncertainty. Top leader’s like you must demonstrate that they believe in new initiatives to their very core. This should be reinforced through:

Board resolutions
Speeches
Purpose statements

The teams that experience advantage in the face of resilience are teams that question existing norms and ways of working, they are teams that are enabled to take on a fair amount of risk–the kind of risk that is necessary for growth. Right now, leaders like you need to:

Model curiosity
Create playful distributed workspaces
Forge an active learning environment that celebrates and rewards experimentation
Visualize the turnaround that your team and company are going to make, because a visualized rehearsal of that progress step by step, will build the confidence for you and you team to make that turnaround happen.

You got this.

If you’re interested in developing your leadership style in these uncertain times, you might be interested in talking to us about some of our remote offerings.

At OverTime Leader we provide executive leadership and management advisory for technology-enabled businesses and teams. If you are looking to spark a people-powered change in your business our team has a toolbox full of ways to help you get started.

Guest UserDecember 10, 2020