The world has changed dramatically in recent years, and it is a truly global economy now, with your partners and competition just as easily being across the world as across the street. Digitalization is driving change at faster rates each day, requiring today’s businesses to adapt faster and in ways never before. So, how do you define success in this new global marketplace.
Business success today is best defined with an “AND”, and the most important Success “AND” is:
Deliver Today and Prepare for Tomorrow’s Change
There is a great saying about success: “It is easier to create it than to maintain it”.
Therefore, shouldn’t success be defined as something that is lasting versus just a snapshot of something that has been achieved? A successful business is a sustainable business, and that means having the ability to reinvent yourselves from time to time in order to keep delivering the customer experience required both today and into the future too.
How sustainable is your business?
A key driver of today’s global economy is the ever changing customer expectations, and they are not becoming easier to deliver to, but harder to deliver to…and they change fast too. Therefore, you could redefine the Success “AND” above as:
Delivering Today’s Expected Customer Experience
and
Preparing to Deliver Tomorrow’s Customer Experience
The businesses focused on the experience they provide their customers are more able to ADAPT and keep pace with change, and even sometimes getting in front of it. Success is really the two “AND’s” defined above and enabled by the ability of the business to ADAPT.
A – Achievement Focused (Both Today and Tomorrow)
You and your people live in a world of distractions and in a world where the availability of information has no limits. In this world, it becomes easy for others to steal your attention and focus away from what you really what to achieve (both now and into the future). You and your team need to stay achievement focused, and align all your efforts towards delivering the experience today and building the capability to deliver the experience that will be required in the future.
Find ways to bring your team’s focus back to the achievement when they get distracted.
D – Diversity Enabled (Ability to See in More Colors)
Diversity is no longer a nice to have, but a must. A diverse team is able to see opportunities and challenges with more perspectives and ideas than others, and then create stronger solutions and customer experiences than other teams would be able to create. These diverse teams see the world in more colors, and see ways to deliver more impactful experiences for their customers.
Build a team with diverse talents and personalities, and you will create a team that can deliver more powerful solutions and build a more successful and sustainable business.
A – Action Oriented (Decide and Act Now)
A fast pace of change requires decisions and action at a faster pace too. Successful leaders focus on hiring people with good business judgment, and who are willing to take decisions and action on their own. They drive their teams to take decisions with both today and the future in mind, and to understand the important, but not just the urgent, that will build the capabilities for even greater future success. Successful teams understand that they cannot wait for all the information they need to make decisions and take actions, so they make assumptions where necessary; take the decision and keep moving forward.
Drive your teams to make assumptions and to keep the right pace for their decisions and action.
P – Purpose Driven (Shared Emotional Fuel)
The millennials are often working for something more than the money, and buying products and services from companies who have strong beliefs beyond the money too. It is becoming more of a purpose led world each day, and purpose led experiences are more powerful than others. A purpose is born within a WHY, and a strong WHY can create a shared emotional fuel for a team to both see and deliver faster on more opportunities. Successful leaders enable the WHY’s in ways that their people are doing their jobs for more than the money, and are looking for ways to do their jobs better every day.
What Purposes (WHY’s) are driving your team every day?
T – Team Approach (Many Voices/One Experience)
It takes a team to deliver powerful experiences for your customers. A diverse team has many ideas, but must come together and both support and deliver together an agreed experience. You have the right team approach when any arguments within the team are before decisions are made, not after they are made. Lively debates are what make for stronger solutions and for more impactful experiences you can provide your customers. So, debates at the right time are what successful teams really need.
When are the majority of debates and arguments within your teams?
Does your business Define Success as an “AND”, and is it Prepared to ADAPT and change at the pace customer’s expect in today’s global economy? Do a quick evaluation of your team on their ability to ADAPT, and you could identify some areas to improve within your business.
A great question to consider if your business is defining success as an “AND”…
In what way do you want your business
to Change the Customer’s Experience in the future?
and
In what ways will you need to ADAPT to Deliver It?
Achievement Focused
Diversity Enabled
Action Oriented
Purpose Driven
Team Approach
