Navigating the Downturn: Resilient Enterprises are Vulnerability-Centric

February 5th, 2009

 

Nervous about the current economic climate?  Being nervous does not put the brain in shape to generate solutions.  On the contrary, worry and fear shut down the fresh thinking needed.  

 

On the other hand, the habit of seeking to address vulnerability is a time-honored leaders’ practice [here’s a lovely example].  Not only is it good commercial process; it’s an excellent antidote to fear.  Brain  juices flow when peoples see opportunities to help others.  By leading employees to focus on shifting Customer vulnerabilities, leaders can both stimulate ingenuity and be rewarded with new solutions and improved morale.   

 

 

No matter the size of your business,  doing what you’ve been doing is not likely to work. Build resilience by focusing on new vulnerabilities -  your own and others’.  Sound counter-intuitive?  Navigating this new economic reality requires creating new kinds of exchanges.  The richest exchanges address both parties’ concerns.   Those concerns are centered on vulnerability. 

 

 

How are your most valued trading partners – key segments - viewing the vulnerabilities they face?  Stay close to their thinking.  Ask questions about how they see their world and what they’re anticipating.  And treat them like partners by asking for advice about how your business might serve others like them – you may be surprised at how good their advice is and how much they like giving it.

 

 

Replace your nervousness with curiosity about how to serve. And stimulate others’ curiosity; opening new questions breeds the Neuroplasticity that will   enable you, employees and customers to respond well to market shifts.   And it will strengthen relationships all around, setting the context for more value to be generated. 

 

 

By listening deeply and often to how key segments are thinking and re-thinking their vulnerabilities, it’s easy to move to:    

  • How might you add fresh value? 
  • What might you invent to make their prospects brighter?     

 

 

High-performing business cultures are based on this practice.  Knowing that they cannot control peoples’ interpretations and choices, leaders ensure that employees, customers and vendors step into inquiry.  It makes everyone smarter. 

 

Already doing that?  Please share.

Not nimble enough to do that?   Want a  manual?  C.K. Prahalad’s book, The New Age of Innovation is excellent.

 

 

Filed under Leading Through Inquiry | Comments (5)

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    Blog promise:

    A thriving enterprise is what every business wants, but blueprints are not readily available. Despite $$bb invested in B schools, informed design is rare: few business cultures generate competitive advantage; few leaders know how to ask the vital questions that enable resilience and responsiveness.

    In the trenches as Business Anthropologist for nearly 3 decades, I've been honored to work with leaders committed to being the best - bringing the best of themselves to the task of building thriving enterprises -- knowing that part of their task will be to inspire the best in others.

    It's been my pleasure to illuminate the core dynamics of commerce, many of which haven't changed since the first human communities - perhaps 350,000 generations ago. Nothing makes leading easy, but mastering those dynamics fuels commerce: opening opportunities, continually improving execution, and minimizing risk - no mater what may be happening around them.

    This blog addresses the tough questions that test leaders in business. I'll offer examples, inquiries, and insight inspired by the glorious ingenuity people bring to the task of creating value.

    Please jump in. What are you thinking about thriving enterprises? I look forward to the dialogue.

    Marsha Shenk