Not long ago in a strategic planning session I was working on two year projections for goal targets with an organization and one of the VPs commented, "How do you expect us to see the future, I am not a prophet."
Are you kidding me? If this was an isolated incident I would say this person was just tired and cranky that day, but the fact is: this is the pervasive opinion in far too many executive offices.
Business leaders seem to have forgotten how to measure risk/reward when making corporate decisions. Could this be why they spend more time evaluating golden parachutes than researching business trends and market analyses?
I'm not picking on my client executive. In all fairness, he seems to listen to all sides before making decisions and fully understands the strategic planning process, but the reason I am mentioning it here is because he is part of the risk-averse epidemic sweeping across the business landscape in this country.
Failure is an option!
The glare of Wall St and the microscopic analysis from stockholders has inhibited timid executives from stretching and trying new ideas.
"If you hit a bull's eye every time, you are standing too close to the target."
People are losing the sense of adventure, their willingness to try new things, their ability to learn from failures. In every bank there is an acceptable amount of loan loss. In every manufacturing organization there is an acceptable number of workplace accidents, in every food company there is an acceptable amount of food waste. Does this mean these companies condone these "failures"? Not at all, but they all realize if you are going to operate near full capacity there are going to be some mistakes and if people are so afraid to make mistakes they will slow down and operate fearfully, that isn’t profitable.
Why are we not employing this to our executive initiatives as well? We need to try different things without people scared they are going to be fired. We need to experiment on ideas in order to find the new things that do work, that are great, that send the company into a new level of profitability.
Hewlett Packard started out by making oscilloscopes and Sony began by making rice steamers. What if they had stopped there? They experimented and tried new things to grow their organizations into what they are today.
Push the edge
Get in the habit of asking your executives and managers to present new ideas that can improve the company. Make it part of every weekly meeting. Let them run with ideas and encourage them to have fun experimenting. Create the mindset that the edge is to be pushed during the idea stage.
Award financial grants for pet projects and let people participate across divisional lines. Frito Lay ran a contest for the best ad idea for the Superbowl Dorito spots. It wasn't the marketing department or an ad agency that had the best ideas. Get people involved.
When you encourage people to try new things and think freely, they will reward your company with great ideas, and even executives might be able to feel confident in making a best guess projection 24 months out.
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