Overtime, many businesses end up evolving through the lens of problem solving and not through the lens of what they want to create. When you take the time to focus on what differentiates a company from its competition, what value it brings to its clients and the world, and what it really wants to become, the problems will automatically solve themselves. If you are driven as an organization to create a shared vision and something is standing in your way, you will quickly find a way to remove it. All the while, still focused on a unified vision.
To be successful in the 21st century, companies must learn to get out of problem solving mode and into the mode of passionate creation. When solving problems, you are by definition looking to the past and limiting the upside of your answer resulting in a real lack of creativity, innovation, and initiative, which are all forward looking characteristics. Focusing on questions that matter, questions that lead to ideas and initiatives that create value, brings Courage, Collaboration, and Creativity to the table. With those three ingredients, the sky is the limit in terms of success.
People ask me all the time HOW to bring more Courage, Collaboration, and Creativity into their organizations. They completely understand the need, but are unsure how to make it happen in a meaningful way. These are not the things they teach in Business School. I tell them there is one key element. If they can passionately embrace this one key element, the rest will fall into place. The key is the leadership team being willing and able to ensure that the underlying business model (the core from which the company extends) is courageous, collaborative, and creative itself. Because the majority of companies today are based on business models that date back to the 1800’s, this can feel like a daunting task. In reality, it may require a lot of change, but it is also the ticket to phenomenal results.
The challenge of bringing real innovation into companies that are large and set in their traditional ways, is also what can give new companies a real competitive advantage. Young companies can very easily and very quickly create environments where employees soar, that attract the best clients, and that ultimately enjoy greater success. This gives a whole new twist to the question of, barriers to entry. We may also need to ask, what are the advantages to entry.
Courage
If a company is willing to show the courage necessary to break out of a traditional models, try something new and more appealing and show its desire for collaboration through its core actions, then the employees will be much more likely to do what is necessary to engage the best clients, discover the best new product ideas, and work to their fullest potential. Leaders must model the kinds of behaviors they are seeking.
Successful 21st Century Businesses will be those that are always searching for something new and rely less and less on the status quo. Always searching for what has changed, what new questions have emerged, and how it all interconnects. They will use change as the fuel for their business model because they understand that they pace of change will only continue to increase overtime and at greater and greater rates. They will also have the courage not to follow the herd and not to allow fear to dictate business decisions.
Collaboration
So many companies fail to harvest the energy and creativity already available inside their firms because their business models are designed to promote internal competition and silos. If you want to promote cross-pollination and tap into the additional intelligence that exists only at the intersections of knowledge bases, then the internal business model must specifically promote those behaviors.
Creating teams that cross departments, functions, and even regions to work on organization wide projects is a simple way to begin working toward promoting a true culture of collaboration. Promoting relationships and interaction between people who wouldn’t normally interact is critical. Collaboration also promotes trust which will is quickly becoming one of the non-negotiables of success.
Creativity
When people are fearful of the consequences of any type of failure, they automatically go into a safety zone where the chances of failure are as small as possible. This is a place where creativity cannot thrive, because creativity requires a certain amount of risk. When people are not afraid of failure and know that it comes with a lot of great knowledge for success, they will be bring their full arsenal of creative tools.
Creating is a very natural state for human beings and one that fulfills our hearts and passions. Thus when employees are free to create, try new things and receive critical feedback, their productivity will naturally increase. Based on my two decades in the corporate world, working all around the globe, I estimate that most companies are operating at about half the productivity that is possible when employees are engaged and operating at their full potential. This is not something that anyone really wants to admit, but we all know it is true.
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