The New Nimble E-Book

Jay Sullivan

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 277

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Transform your organization into an adaptable and flexible innovator In The New Nimble: Leading in the Age of Change, accomplished author, professor, and consultant Jay Sullivan delivers a clear, tangible, and actionable guide to implementing flexibility and creativity in your enterprise. Through interviews with senior leaders from a variety of industries and disciplines, the author shows you the trends and behaviors that allowed successful companies to navigate the changing realities and complexities that have defined recent years, including the COVID-19 crisis, the increasing awareness of racial injustice in society, and the January 6th insurrection. The New Nimble demonstrates how organizations can internalize and institutionalize lessons from recent paradigm shifts in thinking and learn how to apply those lessons to their everyday operations and to prepare for the next major challenge. You'll discover: * How crucial it is to clearly articulate your mission, values, and parameters as an organization * How to gather the types of data and insights that will allow you to make decisions quickly when the next change takes us all by surprise * How building trust within your organization and with your external stakeholders gives you the confidence to take action in times of crisis The questions at the end of each chapter become your playbook for debriefing how your organization handled the myriad shifting realities of the last few years. That ongoing discussion with your team will prepare you to be more nimble as the next change appears. As managers, executives, founders, directors, and entrepreneurs, we will all face enormous decisions in the coming years regarding environmental challenges, shifts in the supply chain and the global economy, and the runaway freight train that is AI. As those and other issues come fast and furious, The New Nimble is the hands-on leadership guide that we'll all need as we do our best to manage our way through chaotic and volatile environments.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

COVER

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TITLE PAGE

COPYRIGHT

DEDICATION

INTRODUCTION: THE NEW NIMBLE – LEADING IN THE AGE OF CHANGE

PART I: UNDERSTAND YOUR ESSENCE

CHAPTER 1:

Know Yourself (and Let Others Know You, Too)

PROFILE: COVENANT HOUSE (NON-PROFITS) – “YOUR MISSION BRINGS YOU MIRACLES”

MASKING YOUR FACE, NOT YOUR FEELINGS

DEEPER CHALLENGES AND BROADER OPPORTUNITIES

“MISSION” IS MISSION-CRITICAL

TAKEAWAYS

NOTE

CHAPTER 2:

Be Your Better Self

PROFILE: BOWERY FARMING (SUSTAINABILITY) – LET YOUR VALUES GUIDE YOU

VALUE #1 – OPT IN

VALUE #2 – THINK WILDLY DIFFERENT

VALUE #3 – BREAK BARRIERS TOGETHER

VALUE #4 – BE KIND TO THE CORE

SUMMARY

TAKEAWAYS

SUGGESTIONS FOR BRAINSTORMING

CHAPTER 3:

Accept Your Limits

PROFILE: MEMORIAL HEALTH – CENTRAL ILLINOIS (HEALTHCARE)

HEICS

MEMORIAL'S FIRST STEPS

PROTOCOLS AND PARKING LOTS

THE EVOLUTION OF DECISION-MAKING

COMMUNICATION

COMING TO CONCLUSIONS

“LONG COVID”

SUMMARY

TAKEAWAYS

NOTES

PART II: ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS

CHAPTER 4:

Think Beyond Yourself

PROFILE – TECHNOLOGY – MAKING TRANSITIONS – LEARN, PRACTICE, AND TRANSFORM

LEARNING REQUIRES HUMILITY

PRACTICE (I.E., REPETITION) BUILDS TRUST

TRANSFORMING REQUIRES ACCEPTANCE – “TRUST” AS A TWO-WAY STREET

TAKEAWAYS

NOTES

CHAPTER 5:

Learn What Others Value

PROFILE: PWC (CONSULTING) ENCOURAGING TRUST AS A BONDING AGENT

CHALLENGING YOUR TALENT STRATEGY

DEVELOPING YOUR TEAM'S SKILLS AND INSTINCTS

TAKEAWAYS

NOTES

CHAPTER 6:

Seek “Meaningful Knowledge”

PROFILE: SALVE REGINA UNIVERSITY (HIGHER ED) – “WE GOT THIS”

DURING THE PANDEMIC

BEYOND THE PANDEMIC

TAKEAWAYS

NOTES

PART III: BE BOLD

CHAPTER 7:

Keep It Moving

PROFILE: DOT FOODS, INC. (SUPPLY CHAIN) – DELIVERING IN A CRISIS

BUILDING THE RIGHT EXTERNAL RELATIONSHIPS

BELIEVING IN YOUR INFORMATION

COUNTING ON INTERNAL RELATIONSHIPS

ACT

TAKEAWAYS

NOTES

CHAPTER 8:

Get It Done

PROFILE: U.S. HOUSE CHAMBER ON JANUARY 6, 2021 (GOVERNANCE) – ONE PERSPECTIVE

TAKEAWAYS

NOTE

CHAPTER 9:

See the Opportunity

PROFILE: THE NBA (SPORTS AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY) – WHERE OPPORTUNITIES ABOUND

ROUTINES ARE MEANT TO BE BROKEN

MOVING FORWARD

TAKEAWAYS

NOTES

CONCLUSION

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

INDEX

END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT

Guide

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Introduction: The New Nimble – Leading in the Age of Change

Table of Contents

Begin Reading

Conclusion

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Index

End User License Agreement

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Advance Praise for The New Nimble

“As the world emerges from COVID, the already rapid rate of change now seems unrelentingly faster, and its direction at any moment increasingly unclear. Through concise and accessible real-world stories, Jay Sullivan delivers thought-provoking insights and challenging inquiries to help leaders and managers navigate these uncertain times. The New Nimble should be required reading for business students and decision-makers at all levels of business and government.”

—Bradley S. Schneider, Member of Congress, U.S. House of Representatives

“The New Nimble acts as a guide of resilience in the midst of extraordinary uncertainty. Jay Sullivan captures some of the most tumultuous times in human history and the many unprecedented moments that challenged all of us to find new and innovative ways to respond. At its core, it is a reassurance and an inspiration that, despite the enormity of the obstacle in our path, if we maintain proper perspective the solutions are within our grasp.”

—Kathy Behrens, President – Social Responsibility & Player Programs, National Basketball Association

“Changes in demographics and attitudes toward higher education will continue to challenge college and university revenue streams for the foreseeable future. Leaders of these institutions will need to be nimble and would no doubt benefit from the insights gleaned from this book.”

—Michael Lochhead, Executive Vice President – Boston College

“The world presents new challenges every day. The New Nimble presents a framework for preparing for and responding to those challenges effectively. Sullivan synthesizes best practices from a wide spectrum of industries, providing readers with inspiring examples of resilience as well as helpful questions to pose to our leadership teams to assess our readiness for the next seismic shift we'll undoubtedly all face.”

—Henry Stoever, President & CEO – Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges

“Sullivan has distilled the critical skills we all need to deal with our more uncertain and faster-changing world. In his pithy and engaging style, he has brought to life both the stories and lessons that teach us how to be “nimbler.” This book could not come at a better time!”

—Robert Chen, WSJ best-selling author of Selling Your Expertise

“Sullivan's New Nimble reinforces the importance of organizational efficiency and adaptability in a variety of professional settings and industries, including higher education. As the value of advanced degrees continues to be scrutinized, institutions must learn to be nimble in a rapidly changing society. Faculty and staff in leadership roles need to read this book. It will inspire academic leaders to think critically about their organizations, learn from other industries, and develop innovative solutions to complex challenges facing the American higher education system.”

—Mike Elias, Executive Director of Strategic Initiatives, University Life at the University of Pennsylvania

Copyright © 2024 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.Published simultaneously in Canada.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Names: Sullivan, Jay, 1962- author.

Title: The new nimble : leading in the age of change / by Jay Sullivan.

Description: Hoboken, New Jersey : Wiley, [2024] | Includes index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2023024953 (print) | LCCN 2023024954 (ebook) | ISBN 9781394185412 (hardback) | ISBN 9781394185429 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781394185436 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Organizational change. | Leadership.

Classification: LCC HD58.8 .S86 2024 (print) | LCC HD58.8 (ebook) | DDC 658.4/06—dc23/eng/20230721

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023024953

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023024954

Cover Design Concept: Jay Sullivan

To Mom and Dad.

Thank you for giving me a solid, stable footing in life.

And to my children, John, Sam, Teresa, and Magdalen.

Thank you for always keeping me on my toes.

INTRODUCTION: THE NEW NIMBLE – LEADING IN THE AGE OF CHANGE

We're all a little bit Martha.

For more than 15 years, my wife, Mary, and I have hosted a neighborhood open-house holiday party. We missed 2019 because a family member was sick, and then 2020 because the entire world was sick. By the fall of 2021, with the hint of the world returning to normal, we decided it was time to try again.

We set the date for December 19, rented two tall space heaters for the patio so people could stay outdoors if that made them feel safer, suggested people should only come if they were vaccinated, and started making Mary's signature fudge. About a week after we mailed the invitations, Omicron reared its ugly head. As the date of the party drew closer and the news of another Covid spike grew more worrisome, a few regrets trickled in. Mary thought we should cancel the party. I wanted to move forward.

On December 16, still not sure what to do, we got a call from Martha, a sweet, elderly neighbor up the street. Martha is a wise and sound voice of reason who ran the annual science fair at the high school here in Pleasantville, New York. She and her husband, Chuck, had always attended our party and enjoyed the chance to catch up with so many people at once.

After a simple, “Hi, Mary. It's Martha.” She got to the point. “I got your invitation. ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MINDS!” She launched into a polite but firm tirade about the dangers of the disease, the threat to everyone right before the holidays, and the likelihood we would be hosting a super-spreader event.

Mary assured her we had space outside and that we were confident that people would only attend if they were vaccinated. In any case, Mary emphasized, we mailed the invitations before Omicron burst on the scene.

Martha shared how much she had missed seeing everyone lately, but still insisted that this was a bad idea and that we were irresponsible for moving forward with the party. She ended hurriedly with a frustrated, “Well, look, don't take us off the list because we still might come, but this is crazy,” and hung up.

For three years, the entire world has been a little bit Martha, and a little bit Mary and Jay – not sure what to do, what information to weigh, what personal interests to weigh, how to make our decisions, and how to have confidence in our next steps. If we could, we delayed our decisions until we had some – even if not enough – information. If our decisions couldn't wait, we plowed ahead on whatever information we had. The pandemic changed so much of our lives and the way we made decisions. It forced us to abandon old ways of doing things and figure out and adopt novel approaches to connecting with each other and the various aspects of our lives.

But the pandemic only highlighted and exacerbated what's been happening in our personal and business lives for more than a decade. Those of us in leadership roles have been asked to make decisions faster, with both too much and not enough information, and with consequences that then lead to even more decisions. The only thing faster than the pace of our decisions has been the blowback from whoever didn't like the decisions. It sounds like a no-win situation. Welcome to leadership.

For the last 25+ years, I've had the privilege of both leading my own firm, and coaching business leaders on their communication skills, either in one-on-one sessions or in group classes. I have listened to thousands of professionals talk about the changes they incorporated into their work and personal lives. We've talked through how they can explain their new plans, their company's revised objectives, and their strategy for the moment, all while their situations remained in flux. We've had those conversations in the face of changing economic situations, changing regulations for their industry, and, most recently, an attack on our democracy, a war in Europe, and a global pandemic.

With each major event a company or team faced, the leader would talk about achieving a “new normal.” The great frustration for everyone seemed to be that once they felt they had the situation figured out, the rules would change. They would have to start all over again. It became apparent that our “new normal” was actually all of us learning to achieve a “new nimble.”

A “new normal” suggests we have achieved a new plateau, a place of stasis and stability, albeit at a place we don't really know yet. Ditch that idea. Please. We're in The New Nimble, where we will need to constantly adapt to change and to changing standards.

We've all become accustomed to making decisions in a fluid environment. The rules keep changing, the factors to consider become more complex, or, in some cases, completely out of control, and the structural underpinnings of how we think about issues no longer apply.

That shift isn't about just one aspect of our lives. It's not just about new rules about working remotely; that's just the business issue du jour. The real shift is about how business leaders are issuing “definitive” directives on Monday, and then backtracking on Tuesday because of the social media response from employees. It's about believing deeply in the stability and integrity of our democratic institutions one day and having doubts the next. It's about not just surface changes regarding how we attend meetings, but philosophical changes to how we relate to our employers and our colleagues.

In 2020, the terms social distancing and essential worker entered the world's vocabulary. Many of us, me included, humbly learned how “non-essential” the world considered us. Well prior to that, the Me Too movement and heightened awareness about racial injustice caused many of us to realize we needed to rethink our thinking – not about a particular topic, but literally about how to think.

We each have honed our analytic abilities from our education and life experiences. Mine come from two distinct privileges. I practiced law for nine years, first in the public interest sphere and then at a large corporate law firm. Prior to law school, I taught English grammar at a boys’ high school in Kingston, Jamaica. I was able to share important grammar nuggets and my own grammar neuroses not only with my students, but to help my own four kids through high school and college. (Oddly, they were never as grateful as I would have thought.) The dual disciplines of law and grammar form the way I think through problems and structure ideas. All of the people you'll meet in this book have their own reasons for solving problems the way they do, and their own instincts for communicating their ideas for your benefit.

During Covid, many of us became more nimble in how to deal with an avalanche of work, as roles shifted and new demands arose. Others found themselves with too much time on their hands and became nimbler at finding ways to contribute to a world in pain. Regardless of which camp you found yourself in, we all needed to figure out how to be more nimble leaders in the unexpected world in which we found ourselves.

Having coached thousands of professionals dealing with an ever-changing landscape, I have observed similarities and differences in how leaders have made decisions in The New Nimble. I have gathered here the experiences of nine organizations or individuals, each from a different industry or profession. There are common elements that impact each entity's ability to succeed. There are also nuanced differences that give each unique challenges and advantages. Their experiences, insights, and innovations hold lessons for all of us as we learn to adapt, adjust, and evolve in rapidly changing times.

The “cast of characters” you'll meet on the following pages will give you insight into the specific challenges facing their industries and professions.

Universities have to adapt to new ways of teaching. But that's the least of their challenges. The remote learning model forced on us all by Covid raised questions about why we gather in person at college at all. What's the added learning we experience by coming together? Is it worth the cost? More importantly, a changing demographic in the United States will dramatically impact how universities approach recruiting and retaining students and position their value. The ivy on their walls was always taken as a sign of stability and permanence. Now, the discussions and decisions within those walls require nimble maneuvering to stay relevant and stay open.

Those in the supply chain struggle to keep our store shelves stocked and our machine parts at the ready. But pandemics, wars, and the occasional surveillance balloon disrupt supply chains or heighten concern that the links in those chains might snap. Our product delivery systems have to work with simultaneous challenges of too much of some products and not enough of others.

The staff at hospitals and homeless shelters alike are inundated with sick and suffering sisters and brothers who need care and compassion. During the pandemic, in particular, they did so while just as frightened and uncertain as everyone else. In a world where “displaced persons” is becoming part of the demographic profile, those institutions need to adapt more nimbly than ever before. Whether your own city's downtrodden population is in need of care, or someone just bussed a few hundred homeless people to your doorstep, you're now conscious of reacting in the moment to crises that simply didn't exist a few years ago.

Consulting firms have helped their clients through industry disruptions, mergers and acquisitions, and economic uncertainty. In recent years, the pace of change has quickened, and the changes themselves have provoked fundamental existential questions for those firms and their clients alike. The world experienced a marked increase in the number of people changing jobs, employers, and even industries, causing added stress on institutions and individuals.

In the United States, our confidence in the rule of law and in the reliability of our institutions had been shaken in recent months and years. It reached a precipice on the afternoon of January 6, 2021, and shocked us all.

In the meantime, our most public of enterprises – professional sports associations – hold up the mantra of “the show must go on.” But they do so on a stage that both expects but-only-sometimes welcomes their stars to weigh in on important issues of the day.

We all have our own challenges and triumphs as we navigate through an ever-changing landscape. We all figure out how to set the tone for our organizations and create new processes for dealing with crises. We each have our own failures. Our collective success will be defined by how we learn from each other's experiences. We foster creativity and innovation for ourselves and our organizations, in part, by looking beyond how our industry or company functions. I intentionally chose a diverse set of industries in the hope that successes in one field might provide inspiration for leaders in other fields.

These stories and the lessons for all of us fall into three categories.

Understand Your Essence,

Ask the Right Questions, and

Be Bold.

By understanding how these three elements come into play as we make decisions, we'll be better able to remain nimble both in times of crisis and in the normal levels of craziness we all experience.

Understand Your Essence

Being nimble is about being both able to pivot and knowing when to do so. We can't pivot if we don't have a starting point. Each of the organizations profiled here is highly conscious of its identity, its reason for being, and how it adds value to the world. Knowing our own essence allows us to move both deftly and strategically in a way many others cannot.

Ask the Right Questions

One of the key drivers of success during times of tumult is the right mix of confidence and humility. Without confidence, we become paralyzed. Without humility, we rush forward blindly. Humility requires accepting that we don't have all of the answers and that we need input from those around us. Asking the right questions of the right people at the right time has proven a hallmark of success for the groups you'll read about. If we put the right structures in place, we can gather the right information when we need it. If we then trust our sources, we know when to dig deeper and when to act on what's in front of us.

Be Bold

To lead, we must make decisions about our path forward and then head down that path. We have to explain those decisions to our stakeholders and accept the consequences of those decisions. The actions taken by the individuals and teams you will read about provide examples of how to engage, impact, and inspire our teams.

Throughout each chapter, I have included questions for you to consider, and approaches you and your organization could take to implement the ideas presented. This book can provide you with a guide on two levels. First, it can be your guide for assessing how your organization managed through the pandemic. Second, it can help you have the discussions that will position you well to continue to manage in a time of tumult. Ask yourself what lessons your Enterprise Risk Management group can apply as it assesses your readiness for the next unexpected upset. This is your guide for how to live in The New Nimble.

In case you are wondering, the day after Martha's call, we cancelled the party. Since we didn't have time to mail out a cancellation note, my daughters and I walked door-to-door to those families for whom we didn't have email addresses. We rang the bell, stepped back about 10 feet, and told each family the party was off. Virtually every single neighbor said the same thing – “Thanks for making the decision for us. We really wanted to come, but it just felt too risky.” In our brief encounters, we were able to have a quick chat with each friend and catch up on how they were doing. It wasn't as much fun as a party, but on the upside, we had enough fudge to last us for weeks.

In hindsight, it was telling how many people, myself included, felt frozen about making the decision to host or attend a party. If their (my) uncertainty was so elevated regarding that simple decision, what does that suggest to all of us about deciding on all the important and complicated stuff we face each day? Fortunately, we can leverage each other's experiences and figure this out together.

I've learned a great and powerful lesson working with groups large and small in the last few years. In short, in spite of horrific behavior by some on social media, I genuinely believe we've all become more patient and forgiving in the last few years. We understand and almost welcome when a colleague's kid interrupts a Zoom meeting, or their cat walks across their computer keyboard. We're sympathetic when our meeting is interrupted because a colleague has to go sign for a delivery. We accept that you can't come to the meeting in person because earlier in the day you needed to take Dad to his doctor's appointment. The biggest and most wonderful lesson I have learned during the pandemic years working with people both remotely and now again in-person is how much more nimble we have all already become. Here are some ways to embrace and enhance that flexibility.

PART IUNDERSTAND YOUR ESSENCE

Essence is what I would call a “soft” word. It has an ephemeral quality to it. Essence sounds more like the name of a perfume than a business concept. And yet essence is exactly the right word to think about when it comes to the non-data, non-financial, non-legal aspects of running our enterprises.

A well-trained finance professional can look at the books of any company and figure out how the company operates. Spreadsheets vary in the details, but not in the overall construct. But looking at spreadsheets tells us little about what makes a company tick, how its leaders make decisions, how staff interacts with clients and each other, and how everyone feels about an organization. (And your stakeholders do, in fact, have feelings about your organization.) Those elements are harder to define, impossible to truly quantify regardless of any employee engagement survey, and more important to understanding how any organization – your organization – can learn to adapt to change and be nimble in the moment.

To help you reflect on the essence of your organization, we'll look at three organizations and how their response to the pandemic was driven by their essence. To be self-aware as a company you need to know your purpose as an entity, the values that drive that purpose, and the limits of your control over your circumstances. It's not just about being conscious about these elements of your business. It's about inhaling and exhaling them with every breath at work. Like an athlete in “the zone” who performs with more agility, you and your organization can respond more nimbly if you know and live your essence.

CHAPTER 1Know Yourself (and Let Others Know You, Too)

Having coached people for more than 25 years, I've often reminded my clients of the old adage, “The only person's behavior you can control is your own.” You can't make other people do something they don't want to do. All you can do is change the way you interact with them to see if you can get a different response from them.

You can't control how other people might ask you to change, that is, be nimble. But if you know with conviction what you stand for, what you will and won't do, then when others expect you to flex in the moment to accomplish a goal, you'll know the extent to which you will bend and accommodate. You'll also know what's outside of your boundaries. If other people know who you are and how you approach the world, they'll know intrinsically what they can ask of you. If your personal brand is unclear, or if other people don't know you, their demands on you to be more nimble and adjust your approach may seem, well, unseemly. Their requests will appear too demanding, or just inconsistent with how you are capable of adjusting.

The same is true on an institutional level. If people both inside and outside your organization know who you are and what you believe, they have a sense of your parameters for your behavior. They then target their requests and demands accordingly. As a result, it becomes easier for you to adjust on the fly, respond to crises, and manage the demands likely to come your way. Knowing your purpose, understanding your motivation, and articulating your boundaries will help you be more nimble as the need arises.

PROFILE: COVENANT HOUSE (NON-PROFITS) – “YOUR MISSION BRINGS YOU MIRACLES”

I graduated from Fordham Law School in 1989 at the height of the AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) epidemic. Because of a generous fellowship program from the Skadden Foundation, I was able to accept a role as in-house counsel at Covenant House, a shelter for young people facing homelessness. Covenant House has always identified its facilities as “crisis shelters” since the young people who come to the agency are in crisis. They have nowhere else to go and no one else to turn to.

At the time, the agency was operated out of a converted detention facility a few blocks west of the Port Authority bus terminal in Manhattan. Covenant House had the only residential unit in the country specifically designed for HIV (human immunodeficiency virus)-positive young people. For two years, my job was to represent those young people on AIDS-related discrimination issues they were facing, and, because it was AIDS in the 1980s, to help them write their wills. In addition to serving teenagers with HIV, I counseled all of the residents in the agency on whatever legal issues arose.

AIDS was the leprosy of its generation. Homeless youth live every day as outcasts already. Adding an HIV+ diagnosis to their already fragile existence was like putting a hurdle on a track already covered in shards of glass. Covenant House rose to the challenge and managed to provide a community to a most desperate population. I knew the agency's ability to think creatively in times of crisis and to react consistent with its mission. I wondered how it responded to the many variables we've all faced in the last few years.

As Covid exploded into our lives and infiltrated our psyches in 2020, Covenant House was operating in cities in the United States and Canada, and with homes for street children in Mexico, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. A staff of 2,200 served more than 2,000 young people every night. The staff's mission was simple – to serve youth in need. And their ethos – to act with unconditional love and absolute respect – has never changed and is understood and voiced in actions large and small by every staff member.