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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Fachliteratur
- Sprache: Englisch
The how-to guide to building an adaptive, productive business environment Graham Winter, author of the best-selling Think One Team, brings you First Be Nimble: A Story about How to Adapt, Innovate and Perform in a Volatile Business World. This book addresses the challenge of how to equip businesses to adapt and thrive in an unpredictable and demanding economy. Told in the form of a fable and illustrated with case studies and powerful tools, the book is designed to engage, inspire, and inform readers from all walks of business life. Helping leaders, teams, and whole organisations to bring their values to the frontline of the battle to be adaptive and productive, First Be Nimble shows readers how to align people and teams, collaborate and co-create with others, reduce resistance to change, boost trust, personal resilience, and performance, and prepare for the unique challenges of adaptive change. * Helps businesses adapt to today's environment, learn to innovate, and build a "one team'" mentality * Gives leaders the practical tools to facilitate change and foster the conversations that help people to learn and grow together * Uses a unique, fable-style format, with inspirational examples, to bring key concepts to life While many business leaders are well versed in the importance of company values, they are often ignorant of how to bring them to life, and how to build an adaptive, high performing business. First Be Nimble is here to help.
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Seitenzahl: 207
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012
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First Be Nimble: A Story About How To Adapt, Innovate And Perform In A Volatile Business World
Table of Contents
FIRST BE NIMBLE
A STORY ABOUT HOW TO ADAPT, INNOVATE AND PERFORM IN A VOLATILE BUSINESS WORLD
GRAHAM WINTER
First published in 2012 by Jossey-Bass A Wiley imprint
www.josseybass.com
42 McDougall St, Milton Qld 4064 Office also in Melbourne
Typeset in Palatino LT Std Light 10.5/13
© Graham Winter 2012
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:
Author: Winter, Graham.
Title: First be nimble : a story about how to adapt, innovate and perform in a volatile business world / Graham Winter.
ISBN: 9781118329597 (pbk.)
Subjects: Business planning.
Strategic planning.
Performance technology.
Dewey Number: 658.4012
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the Australian Copyright Act 1968 (for example, a fair dealing for the purposes of study, research, criticism or review), no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, communicated or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission. All inquiries should be made to the publisher at the address above.
The story ‘Even chocolate frogs adapt’ featured in this book is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Cover design by Adrian Morgan
Cover photo © Thinkstock/iStockphoto.com
Frog illustration and First Be Nimble logo by Emma Stuart © Think One Team International 2012
First Be Nimble model graphic design by Mango Chutney Design <mangochutney.com.au>
Printed in China by Printplus Limited
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Limit of liability/Disclaimer of warranty: While the publisher and authors have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.
To Carol, Mark and Ben
about the author
Graham Winter is the author of the bestseller Think One Team and Founder and Practice Leader — Client Solutions for Think One Team International, an Australian-headquartered consulting firm.
A psychologist by profession, Graham has a unique blend of experience consulting with top national and international leaders as well as teams in business and elite sport. His appointments and experiences include:
• six years as the exclusive designer and developer of high-performance leadership programs for PwC Consulting in the Asia–Pacific
• three-time chief psychologist for the Australian Olympic team
• author of the bestseller Think One Team (Jossey-Bass, 2008), The Man Who Curedthe Performance Review (Jossey-Bass, 2009) and High Performance Leadership (John Wiley & Sons, 2002)
• designer of the leading-edge development systems and frameworks think one team™, cure the review™ performance partnering, united leadership™, always coaching and first be nimble™.
Graham and his team consult widely across industry and government to assist leaders and teams in leadership and team development, performance conversations, talent management, and change readiness and resilience.
This book was inspired by the many conversations with clients throughout Australia and Asia about their need to build the capabilities within leaders and teams to adapt, innovate and perform in a volatile business world.
Reach Graham at the Think One Team International website www.thinkoneteam.com or at [email protected].
acknowledgements
Many people helped in so many different ways to bring this book and the first be nimble™ model and system to life; however, some deserve a special thanks.
• Carol Winter for her love and support, including putting up with me writing at all hours of the day and night.
• My wonderful son Ben, who did the set-up work for the design community, the blog and offered great ideas and feedback on my first writings while we were backpacking in India.
• Mark Winter for his insights on social media, for being a great son and a sounding board for crazy ideas.
• Paul Lloyd for his support as a business partner and leading the Think One Team International business.
• Ruth Sloley and Diana Nichols for the great job they do in looking after our clients, coordinating our team and making Think One Team International a fun place to work.
• Julie Cunningham and Lily Maras for their ideas, insights and support when I needed people to challenge and stimulate my thinking.
• Ron Steiner for his always insightful feedback and encouragement through the times when this wasn’t going to plan.
• Cherylle Hampton and Alex Grimshaw for their support, friendship and understanding as we have reshaped and grown Think One Team International.
• The 80+ members of the first be nimble™ design community on LinkedIn. Their willingness to share experiences and ideas was inspiring and helped enormously to bring the model to life.
• Emma Stuart for her superb illustrations of our delightful frog.
• Rowland Hill, Matt Hepplewhite, Kelly Smith and the rest of the team at our graphic design consultants Mango Chutney.
• Darren Coulter, Bek Gratton and the team at our website designers Karmabunny.
• Steve Hall and Laura Rodriguez for their patience and skills in creating our promotional and training videos.
• Nigel Penny for sharing his vast experience in strategy mapping.
• Michael Gilbert for his skilful driving and background knowledge of Sydney.
• Frank Prez for his 20 years of professional guidance and to Scott Durham who makes sense of all our numbers.
• Wiley’s Australian team for their ideas, support and guidance, with special thanks to Lucy Raymond for pushing me to create the right title, Sandra Balonyi for her sensitive and skilful editing, Gretta Blackwood for laying the marketing foundations, Keira Dickinson for attending to all those essential details, and Elizabeth Whiley and Alice Berry for guiding the manuscript through to completion.
• Scott Eathorne for his promotional work that is helping to build awareness of the first be nimble™ system.
• To all my clients, alliance partners and colleagues thank you for the privilege of working with you.
introduction
No-one in business needs to be told that the world is operating with a speed, scale and form never witnessed before.
Someone has their foot on the accelerator. It’s fast, it’s unpredictable and no-one is in control.
We can access a lifetime’s information in an instant, start or lose a company in a day, and watch as unimaginable political change unfolds in a breaking news update.
The old boundaries are gone. Social media empowers the consumer, the internet connects creators, alliances flourish between competitors and job security is an oxymoron. Nothing is certain and yet anything seems possible.
Business experts and politicians alike constantly trumpet the imperative for organisations, industries and whole nations to adapt to this tsunami of change. But what does this mean? And how do we do it?
Surely we need better than traditional change management, particularly when the practitioners themselves almost proudly claim that 70 per cent of change initiatives fail.
what do we really need?
We posed a question to clients of our firm:
‘What do you need to help you and your teams to better adapt and perform in this volatile world?’
Their comments shaped the direction and contents of this book:
• confidence to handle ambiguity and uncertainty
• tools that boost innovation and collaboration within and between teams
• breakthrough ideas that change the business
• resilience to handle high load and unpredictable change
• better ways to engage stakeholders in creating the future
• fresh approaches to managing and leading change.
Our research, collaboration and thinking led to a new paradigm that we call ‘first be nimble’.
This book brings that paradigm to life through the vivid and engaging business story ‘Even chocolate frogs adapt’ and an accompanying suite of principles, guides and tools to help you apply this approach in your organisation.
why ‘first be nimble™’?
Let’s have a brief look at four assumptions that underpin this new paradigm.
1 Adaptive replaces technical: disruption is the new normal.
Most of the big challenges that we face in the unpredictable and turbulent business world do not have the right or wrong (technical) solutions of yesteryear. These are complex and disruptive challenges full of ambiguity, uncertainty and conflicting objectives. They require us to adapt: to let go of firmly held assumptions, beliefs and behaviours and to embrace a new way of thinking where disruption is good and the status quo is dangerous. Our very survival now depends on creative adaptability — to innovateour way through challenges where previous generationsmanagedthrough theirs.
2 The future is nimble, connected teams.
The world of the future belongs to the organisations that create and successfully tap the power and strength of nimble and adaptive teams. These teams are masters of adaptive change. They form quickly around strengths, threats and opportunities; learn and innovate quickly; and shape or adapt to their environment. In an unpredictable but connected world, the greatest capabilities that we can build in ourselves and our teams are those of leading and living in nimble and adaptive teams.
3 To thrive in constant change we must learn to transition.
Nimble people and teams survive and thrive in a changeable world because they have the capability and resilience to anticipate, initiate and respond to change, and even more importantly, to transition. As William Bridges highlighted in his ground-breaking bookManaging Transitions: Making the Most of Change1:
It isn’t the changes that do you in, it’s the transitions. Change is not the same as transition. Change is situational: the new site, the new boss, the new team roles, the new policy. Transition is the psychological process people go through to come to terms with the new situation. Change is external, transition is internal.
Transitions are adaptive change, and vice versa. You need only look at the needs of business leaders expressed previously to see that they crave the skills and tools to initiate, support and complete successful transitions.
4 First develop the capability and resilience to adapt.
Nimble is not just about being fast. Nimble is the ‘sweet spot’ between too inflexible and structured on the one hand, and undisciplined and out of control on the other. Nimble consistently beats ‘inflexible’ because it learns, innovates and adapts faster and better in a volatile world, and it reliably trounces ‘undisciplined’ because it finds the right place between opportunity and risk. The most powerful way to prepare yourself, your team and your organisation to survive and thrive in a fast, unpredictable, competitive and complex world is to ‘first be nimble’ — in other words, to first develop the capability and resilience to adapt.
to sum up bluntly
The old toolkit of technical fixes, linear change management and bureaucratic best practices just won’t cut it in a disruptive business world.
This book and the related first be nimble™ model and system address that challenge with a new paradigm to guide you and everyone in your organisation in developing and sustaining resilience, agility, innovation and adaptability.
Beginning with the story ‘Even chocolate frogs adapt’, you will experience the journey of a company and its people who have known the nimble adaptability of a growing organisation and now must bring that agility to life again in a bigger and more mature business.
That company, McCrae’s Fine Chocolates, was a favourite of its customers and the envy of competitors until size, management practices, a jumble of technologies and market pressures turned it into a slow, bureaucratic shadow of its former self.
A change of ownership provided the opportunity to try something that seemed unthinkable: to meld together the unique culture of the past with cutting-edge, digital-age strategies and technologies to create a nimble, adaptive, high-performing organisation perfectly suited to the volatile business world of today and tomorrow.
From the vivid story a first be nimble™ model is built that you will find easy to understand and apply in your organisation. The model will give everyone a common language, valuable case examples and simple tools for boosting teamwork and performance at all levels from frontline to the executive suite.
Of course, the McCrae’s Fine Chocolates transformation wasn’t without many of the challenges that you will face as you and your team aim to become more nimble. To mention just a few, they faced resistance to change, over-controlling managers, fear of failure, silo thinking, conflicting priorities, frustrating bottlenecks, overload and a host of bureaucratic rules and processes.
Through a mix of courageous leadership, breakthrough thinking and empowered people, McCrae’s Fine Chocolates challenged the traditional conventions and applied a refreshingly simple, yet powerful, strategy that energised staff and delighted customers in ways that even they couldn’t have imagined when they began the journey.
First Be Nimblecombines the McCrae’s story with examples of practical tools that will guide and inspire you to:
• crack open the bottlenecks that are blocking progress
• make bold choices to leverage your strengths and disrupt competitors
• use partnering and co-creation to accelerate and scale up to unimaginable levels
• learn, innovate and adapt on the run
• build an organisation that can flex to suit changing conditions
• lead teams that excel in nimble change and nimble projects.
If you are seeking the blueprint for how to create an agile and intelligent organisation that can handle anything that the volatile business world throws at it, then this book and the online resources at www.thinkoneteam.com will become a valuable career and business resource. I hope you enjoy the story, embrace the vision, apply the tools and even take a moment to savour a chocolate frog. When you’ve read the story, that frog will always remind you of the secret to succeeding in an ever-changing world: first be nimble.
1 W Bridges,Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change, Perseus Books, New York, 2003, p. 3.
part I: the story of ‘even chocolate frogs adapt’
chapter 1: turbulence
the imperative to adapt
It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.
Charles Darwin
the perfect storm
It could have been a boardroom anywhere in the world.
The Managing Director was waiting well before the stroke of 9 am. He looked the part: impeccably groomed, Italian suit, striped shirt, diamond cufflinks, Rolex watch and a favourite red tie. Exactly what you’d get from central casting if you asked for a Managing Director.
On receiving the latest interim results, he’d called an urgent executive meeting.
Meetings were cancelled, flights hurriedly booked and work re-prioritised by super-efficient assistants who made sure their executive arrived on time, fully briefed and, as much as possible, suitably armed.
Ten men in suits sat around the oval table. There were no greetings. The MD went straight to the point.
‘We’ve promised the market $30 million and this looks closer to $10 million.
He fixed his gaze across the crystal water jugs towards the stern quartet of regional Vice Presidents.
‘Is there any chance we can trade out of this in the next quarter?’
They shook their heads in geographical sequence: Asia–Pacific first, Europe last.
It was the toughest conditions they’d ever seen. Retail sales were getting monstered by online upstarts; costs of labour, power and transport were out of control; and worst of all the margins were shrinking because the market was too price sensitive to pass on costs.
If that wasn’t enough the government red tape seemed endless, activists had launched a social media attack about the company’s links to child labour in West Africa, and every market was flooded at the premium and generic end.
‘What are we doing to change this?’ he asked of the group.
He heard all the right words: lean manufacturing, re-engineering, cost cutting, values, new technology, accountability, tight controls, culture change, customer-centric and extremely busy.
It wasn’t enough. ‘We need surgery,’ he announced to the Chief Financial Officer seated to his right. ‘What are the options?’
The reply was quick, definite and just what you’d expect from the hitting zone of a CFO: ‘More redundancies, cut training, travel and marketing, and tighten every budget line’.
There were murmurs, but no-one dared to be first to speak. They’d already been through one round of redundancies, and the budgets were squeezed so tight they could barely breathe. Another cut to training and marketing could trigger a rush of talent out the door.
‘Or there’s one other option,’ added the CFO to a deathly quiet room. ‘Sell McCrae’s.’
‘Mmm,’ was the rejoinder around the room. Others might call it cannibalism. These guys called it brilliant.
‘We sell down one of our less favourite businesses and it gives us the cash injection we need.’
‘What exactly do we lose?’ asked the MD, turning to his regional leaders.
‘Not much,’ replied the Asia–Pacific VP, jumping at the chance to shed a future liability on his ambition to lead a multinational company. ‘It’s a mature business with a high cost base. The product range still looks pretty good and it’s borderline profitable, so I can get their finance guy to package up the numbers to be almost impressive and sell it before it slides further.’
‘Can we find a buyer?’
The CFO chortled slightly. ‘If you’ve got the right bait there’s always a fish swimming somewhere.’
‘Done.’ The MD smiled for the first time. ‘Make it happen before the next board meeting or we begin executive redundancies.’
With the sale of McCrae’s they could meet the market expectations for at least the next quarter. Hopefully by then the conditions would have improved.
No-one in the room really expected that to happen but the company was big enough to weather the storm for a while longer before it really impacted on benefits and careers.
extinction
Charles Darwin observed that it is not those who are most intelligent or strong that survive, but rather those who adapt to change.
Certainly we have strong industries and governments full of intelligent leaders and teams, but we face, in business and the wider world, what Darwin might well have called ‘an extinction event’.
The traditional hierarchical, management-controlled, process-driven organisation is too blinkered to see the real threats, too slow to respond when it finally does and too risk averse to get ahead of the game.
‘Even chocolate frogs adapt’ is the story of a smart and strong business that became too comfortable with success and then too protective of its place in the world.
That business, McCrae’s Fine Chocolates, is about to be cut free from the larger company that you just briefly met.
Its challenge will be to turn around beliefs, habits and practices that made it successful in the past but now threaten its very survival.
Come and meet one of the key players.
alex reid
2 pm late January. First-class lounge. Sydney International Airport.
Alex Reid was busy — too busy for lunch. But he could feel his energy dropping. For a non–coffee drinker a mid-afternoon sugar hit was his best chance of firing up enough to get things done in time to catch the 15.40 Cathay Pacific flight to Hong Kong. A bottle of Coke and a chocolate bar would do the trick. The concierge was fetching them right now.
Selling your business is both nerve jangling and tedious — balancing equal parts pride, pragmatism and sentimentality. While every entrepreneur dreams of cashing in on their big idea, Alex — a 32-year-old internet whiz kid — was within 24 hours of fulfilling that dream.
After seven years of seriously hard work, his ‘baby’ would net him a cool 20 million Australian dollars. Not bad for a computer-savvy Aussie guy with a marketing degree and a love for fossicking through markets in the back lanes of Asia.
His business, ExoticStreetGear (ESG), with its unique blend of fashion label, chic stores and cult-like online following, was recently acclaimed one of the three hottest retail brands in Asia. Soon it would be taken global by its new Chinese owners.
Tomorrow’s handover ceremony overlooking the always stunning Hong Kong Harbour would be perfect provided Alex emailed the final documentation to his legal team in the next 90 minutes. Fine detail wasn’t his strongpoint, but this was worth every last spark of energy and focus.
The Coke arrived in a long, stylish glass and the chocolate in a curious circular box. A smiling frog peered over the edge.
He gulped down half a glass of Coke and then flicked open the box. Inside, a rather confident looking chocolate frog lay comfortably on an expansive chocolate lounge. Alex smiled, picked the frog off the lounge chair and popped it in his mouth.
Even the hyperactive Alex Reid paused for a moment as the flavour of the smoothest chocolate he had ever tasted enveloped his senses.
He picked up the box. It read ‘McCrae’s Fine Chocolates’.
Alex knew what to do with his $20 million.
a spark of innovation
On the day he returned from Hong Kong Alex Reid did two things.
First, he visited a stylish row of shops in the inner Sydney suburb of Surry Hills, where he’d heard that you could often find customers queued onto the footpath patiently waiting their turn to purchase one of the great delicacies of Australia: McCrae’s Fine Chocolates.
Second, he had plans to have lunch in a stylish city bistro with a close friend who, apart from sharing Alex’s passion for extreme sport, was a rising star in one of the few thriving investment banks.
At Surry Hills, the tall, lean entrepreneur with still boyish good looks did due diligence ‘Alex style’: he walked the streets in sneakers and jeans, chatted to customers, engaged staff in conversations and posted questions to his online network.
