Something or Nothing?

Have you encountered this in your board room and your organisation lately?

The talk is that there is too much uncertainty, it’s too difficult, too expensive, too complex so the decision is “let’s wait and see how it shakes out”.  We  think we will invest, grow, address productively, workforce and structural problems when times are more stable.

We are seeing this approach too often right now exacerbated by wars, continued global uncertainty and UK French and USA elections looming. Many business leaders think let’s wait until we are more certain, till the path is clear.

But doing nothing or waiting is still a decision, and the world moves on while you don’t.

This wait and see situation is across the financial sector and many other industries and was summed up well recently by Andy Haldane in the FT. https://www.ft.com/content/e01054dc-2236-4e37-979f-961a96df3ba0

He suggested that by being risk avoidant we risk today repeating what we did before. As following the 1929 financial crash the world became much more risk averse:

“These scars, financial and psychological, gave rise to what John Maynard Keynes called the “paradox of thrift” … this paradox ushered in the Great Depression.” 

We then find ourselves led by politicians and leaders and teams who are guess what - more risk adverse. They lead with a defensive mindset, closed in thinking, avoidant behaviours and are not open to innovation and ideas. True innovation leads to growth. Anyone seen growth in the UK economy lately, by the way?

So, what does the right leadership look like in uncertain times?

I love cricket and I am British so, I love a true underdog team taking on the big teams of the world with courage and spirit. Watching the ICC T20 world cup I have taken a real interest in USA Cricket journey and the leadership this team has shown. Getting through to the Super 8 was quite remarkable for a team led by a captain whose day job isn’t cricket, but an Oracle engineer! The team motto is “fearless cricket” and they show up and perform well in uncertain times. A team that has come from nowhere in the last few years to co-host the T20 world cup and get noticed as they play, Go, USA!

Kathryn McEwen the creator of the Resilience at Work toolkit suggests the combined leadership imperatives are:

·         Navigating uncertainty & change

·         Handling adversity

·         Fostering innovation & creativity

·         Maintaining focus & motivation

·         Building trust & confidence

·         Promoting wellbeing and work life balance

·         Enhancing decision making

·         Driving organisational performance

The leadership resilience toolkit assessment describes these in more detail but what jumped out for me:

To foster innovation & creativity means encouraging risk taking and creative thinking by viewing failure as a learning opportunity. That doesn’t say hunker down and wait for it all to blow over!!

Coaches are great at working with you as individual leaders and C Suite teams and we use tools like the R@W toolkit to help leaders see where they sit on the leadership qualitative skill set. 

Our coaches skills have been honed supporting 800+ leaders navigate the pandemic and the challenges since. We know high pressure and we know how to achieve high performance too. Leadership in uncertain and unchanging times looks courageous and decisive and is forward facing. 

How could you drive organisational performance via building high performing teams that foster innovation not risk aversion?

Can we help you do that?

How can you be ready to mobilise for the immediate future?

Our organisations, their people and the economy need us to be entrepreneurs and to take risks. If we do nothing it still means something is happening and you may not be seeing it or be ready for it.

If you want your mind blown read Dr NO by Percival Everett. The book follows a Professor whose research is into NOTHING. His hypothesis is that the way we think about nothing is all wrong. The book is quirky, funny and stretching my intellectual capacity. But it was a great read and fed my curiosity:

“Most believe, wrongly, that nothing is merely the emptiness between subatomic particles. Nothingness is not emptiness anymore than it is the absence of something, some thing, some things or substance.”

So, we may sit in our board rooms and think we will do nothing RIGHT NOW. The fact is we are not in control of nothing, and we can’t and shouldn’t make decisions without realising that nothing is a decision and will have consequences. 

What might we do other than nothing? 

Think about some of the questions you could explore and use those in your decision making. So even if you decide nothing is the action then you have decided that from a wider lens and wider conversation. Or maybe you decide you will in fact do something as this is the time when action really is needed.

Some questions I like and use in coaching can be found in the book Not Knowing by Steven D’Souza and Diana Renner:

•  How do volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity affect your role or context?

• What are some of the complex issues you are facing that would benefit from generating multiple hypotheses?

• When in your life have you taken a leap of faith?

You know it’s not just decisiveness you need it is courage too, don’t you? So as the Zac Brown Band sing you have got to “Jump Right In.” Why not let our coaches jump with you? Reach out to us on info@ltdblend.com