PRINCIPLE #5: Crisis Guarantees Growth
By: Rodd Olmstead
Tags: Japan, Retail, Change Management, Leadership, Innovation

You’d be hard pressed to find a person in, or interested in, the world of business that didn’t observe it to be a constantly evolving beast where the pace of change is only ever increasing.

Beyond simply the pace of change, the type of change these days calls for reconsideration of; traditional change management practices, the roles that lead and implement change as well as the practices that facilitate the imbedding of change.

Over the last decade or two a lot has been made of change management, change leadership or being an agent of change.

Whether the organizations operations leader is a long term employee, a well experienced leader now consulting for leading advisory firm or perhaps a career experienced COO contracting as a hired gun on a rapid transformation project that relates to a recent private equity acquisition, whatever the catalyst for the role — there is a thread that must run through the operational leadership approach to all — that is approaching the process of rapid transformation with both sustainable practices and growth in mind.

In the decades to date business transformation has largely been the domain of expats and/or consultants. At risk of stating a controversial opinion, on average the prevailing approach of these expats and/or consultants is effectively an approach of micro-management. These professionals have a short term, in-and-out mentality that is by its very nature not sustainable. They approach the task by doing ‘the work of the few’; more often than not they force standard operating procedure (SOP) on both the few and the many.

Photo by Daniel McCullough on Unsplash

In the previous article we looked at SOP and the need to go above and beyond SOP in order to embed a higher order purpose amongst both the few and the many. Not least of which given the reality that forced SOP is both demotivating and can lead to higher than average turnover.

Employee turn over is an important consideration. Where a large-scale, front line work force is required, annual turn over can be as high as 400%. Crisis and/or transformation leadership, with both sustainable practices and growth in mind, must allow a focus on transformation AND retention.

With transformation and retention in mind, the key questions for operations leaders at this stage of the transformation process are:

How consistently do the few and the many execute what you want?

Do you know why?

Based on considerable experience, of both getting ‘it’ right and getting ‘it’ wrong, my point of view is that the most meaningful lessons cannot be taught. Which leads us to Principle #5: Crisis guarantees (an opportunity for) growth.

Everyone in business these days loves the idea of transformation, but what he, she or they really want are immediate results. Immediate results and transformation are rarely the same thing.

During a transformation there is a low tolerance for failure. In parallel there can also be expat/consultant energy and enthusiasm for the project outcome — what they’re doing looks good, but people don’t really know how or why things are happening. The very nature of the transience of these senior resources means that everything they do will be gone when their assignment times out. There is always an impending end date.

The approach of an Operations Leader with both sustainable practices and growth in mind is distinctly different from a traditional consultant/expat change mentality.

The areas for today’s Ops Leaders to explore, with relation to ‘the many’,

relate to; the values of the many, immersive learning practices and the real meaning of sustainable change.

1. Values

In the previous article we explored the insight related to the need for people to have a more emotive purpose. If we’re to lift the lid and look a layer below this insight into the motivators of the many, it’s my driving belief that we’d find the very real, very meaningful values driven motivator of the many.

Pride.

The many are working class people. Working class people, such as my family and I, are proud people. Hands-on and hard working. More often than not, relentless.

Photo by Nick Karvounis on Unsplash

2. Immersive learning

My father was in the armed forces. Even if he could have afforded to take our family’s car to the mechanic, he probably wouldn’t have. When it came to things like changing the oil he did the job himself.

As a teenager, before I started my career in retail (as an entry level shelf stacker), my Dad showed me how to change the oil in the car. The first time he showed me he did just that, he showed me and I didn’t retain the information!

The next time the car’s oil needed changing he gave me the space to take on the task myself. I couldn’t do it. So he stood back, spoke to me of the basics of the process only and allowed me to find my way through to the solution.

This effectively became on of the most important and long serving lessons I have learned. The most meaningful lessons cannot be taught. Set up an environment where people are immersed in the learning experience; implicitly, repetitiously, habitually, with personal pride.

Providing guidance toward the outcome is important, but providing an opportunity to learn and allowing people to be the determination of the solution is the key factor.

Photo by Russ Photographer on Unsplash

3. The real meaning of sustainable change

When people are involved and empowered, when people are afforded a values based way to own and deliver on the successful completion of a (new) task.

Sustainable change is deeply embedded change. Successful change is delivered by an intentionally retained workforce.

Having worked internationally I believe I can say that true human insight is cross cultural — whatever the region or related culture — the breadth of the population, in turn your frontline workforce, will be proud, working class people, just like my family. So tap in to those values!

Now that we’re at the end of a long, often challenging year, I would like to wish you and your families a Covid-safe, happy holiday season. Happy new year also and I look forward to connecting with you online for a new chapter in 2021.

Rodd.

I acknowledge the ongoing partnership with Rennae Long in writing early drafts of this article series for me.