Uncertainty screams for tactical agility, now!
As we charge into the Twenty First Century, whether it is business or personal, stuff is changing at an accelerated rate, demanding more operational and tactical agility. When it comes to business, fortunes can now be made or lost in milliseconds, literally! Don’t believe it? Ask some of the now filthy rich or totally broke high frequency traders preying on the World’s stock, bond and foreign exchange markets. From the boardroom to the living room, things are speeding up!
For those of you stressing to run a healthy business while remaining healthy yourself, the stakes and challenges just keep getting higher. Given today’s combination of mega trends, such as IT dependency, generational tensions, add to these new, hard to grasp economical paradigms with the elements of a perfect financial, political and social storm, you have to be increasingly quick on your feet or, as it is now called, agile.
Yet even being agile may no longer be enough!
Take Toyota for example, the poster child of the Japanese industrial boom. They were one of the companies that literally wrote the book on agility two decades ago. Yet since then, they seem to have succumbed to that success and lost their agile edge. Defeated by most of what we refer to as the prime inhibitors of change, Toyota has suffered large recalls, a damaged reputation and a lower stock price.
Becoming yesterday’s expert on corporate agility absolutely does not insure success going forward. What’s needed to continue being on top are powerful tools plus a desire to master them. This takes a constant vigilance, training and a level of consciousness that spans both the transaction side of your business all the way over to the relationship side; but don’t dare stop there. Having loyal relationships with your customers will begin to rot from the inside out if you fail to create good personal relationships with each worker and supplier. This means mastering your soft skills and body language too.
Win/Win is also a component mastering corporate agility
That will give you an edge going forward, but not even Win/Win will insure your success. Our experience and research that went into our forth-coming book points to that you must practice looking forward instead of relying on historical facts, figures and graphs no matter how fresh they are! Just like sailing a boat or driving a car, you and your crew will be safer and more effective if you spend your time and energy looking forward through the windshield not back into your rear view mirror.
One of the clearest examples of this is one of our agility tools called Forward Decision Drivers or FDD. Although FDD started life as a sales tool, it can also be used by marketing, service, quality control, research and development. This tool allows you to leverage your ability to be agile with a few non-intrusive yet well crafted and thoughtful questions. These efficient questions can be asked in about 30 seconds by just about anybody in your organization. They can also be cataloged and tracked for trends. The more information you gather, the more you will know and be able to tackle what:
- Details your products and services have that excite/annoy your customers
- Customers expect from you going forward
- Competitors offer that is tempting to your customers
- Messages marketing should focus on to maximize your impact
- You are correcting and improving and as time passes
Very little of this information is accessible from a typical corporate dashboard configuration or current cookie-cutter type business and CRM systems. Agility now means so much more that just flexible software development. It is now time to learn how agility can become the frame of mind that propels you and your corporate crew through the turbulent waters now gathering in front of your corporate sailboat. Join us on-board!
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About Kurt and Hans:
Although Kurt Larsson and Hans Amell come from opposite sides of the business world, they passionately intend to share their extensive experience simply and easily to help you to consciously master the power and profit of becoming agile. Through a chance meeting, they decided to combine Hans’ agile C-Level business tools with Kurt’s Sensational Soft Skills Toolbox. Their first project, their forth-coming book on corporate agility, is written to coach and encourage today’s business leaders to not only get agile or die, but to thrive in turbulent times.
Hans is a former director level corporate consultant who specializes in increasing corporate agility throughout large organizations. He now pilots Catalyst Acquisition Group, Ltd. and has personally put their showcase acquisition Minerva Corporate Learning Partner on the path of mastering agility. He did this using the tools and experiences gained in the boardrooms and customer sites of such leading organizations as McKinsey, Dun & Bradstreet and Honeywell. These are the tools he now offers you.
Kurt Larsson comes from an international sales and marketing management career. He has sold everything from car tires in Houston, Texas to retail banking systems in over 20 countries. For the past 20 years he has run his educational consulting company Expanding Understanding on a path of business and communication agility and mastery. His focus has been on developing and mastering a blend of his sensational soft skills with traditional sales, service, and leadership tools in a conscious and efficient manner.
For more information regarding their upcoming book and their consulting services, please contact them below or subscribe to our blog below.
