Last week, at a keynote that I did in Malaysia, an attendee raised their hand with a very important question that I feel needs to be addressed. The attendee said everything that I was speaking about sounds wonderful and makes sense, and it is pretty easy to do when things are going well at your company… But what about when things aren’t going great for your organization? How do you continue to innovate and implement forward thinking ideas then? The good news is, there are ways to adapt during times of difficulty.
I believe that there are two things that a company should do to focus on adapting and changing when things are not going well. First, don’t wait for things to be going poorly before you decide to make a change. The best time to adapt is when things are beginning to go uphill, not when they are going downhill. Work on thinking of different business models and try to disrupt yourself. You shouldn’t wait for trouble and problems to arise before you start thinking about doing things differently. Always disrupt yourself when things have never been better!
Second, always be as transparent as possible with your people. There are many ways to do this but a great example is Spiceworks, the world’s largest IT community. When advertising started going downhill, employees at Spiceworks were really concerned about the status of their jobs. To combat this uneasiness, they started to hold a weekly or monthly meeting in a town hall area with food. During this meeting employees can ask any questions they want. This makes a lot of sense and gives your organization opportunities that you wouldn’t usually have. Be sure to let employees know in advance if things aren’t going well within the company or industry, don’t just leave them hanging. Of course, you don’t necessarily have to hold large meetings like this for results. Just remember to be transparent with your people and don’t wait to make a change until things in your organization are already going downhill.
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Jacob Morgan is a keynote speaker, author, and futurist. You can invite Jacob to keynote your next conference, subscribe to his videos on Youtube, check our his podcast, or subscribe to his newsletter!
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