HOW YOU CAN SURVIVE & THRIVE DURING CHAOS.

11 Guiding Principles For Leading People and Restoring Competitiveness in Turbulent Times!

I originally published this article for young managers and new leaders nearly 2 years ago but with the events of recent week and months, I think it’s more relevant than ever.

It can act as a guide for young executives and a timely reminder for veteran business leaders, right up to and including board level.

THE BACKGROUND

As a young manager just beginning my business career, leadership training and development was minimal or to be more precise, non-existent. Instead, it was the usual, learn on the job scenario or learn from your bosses, most of which were incidentally, pretty average to be honest.

Leadership development was often reserved for senior leaders and frankly, much of this seemed to me to be a waste of good money because many of these leaders had already achieved some levels of success or been promoted into their level of incompetence through being ‘yes’ people.

Either way, they had the status and the power, which confirmed consciously or unconsciously that their ways must be right. Consequently, they were too rigid, too conditioned, too old or too arrogant to change.

With this observation in mind and a determination to be the very best I could be and better than those who’d gone before me, I started adding to my knowledge by reading and studying the practices of some of the great management thinkers at the time, one such person was Tom Peters.

THRIVING ON CHAOS

Tom is probably best known for his first book In ‘Search of Excellence’ but I’d like to share some of the key lessons I learned from his far more impactful book (for me at least) ‘Thriving on Chaos — Restore Your Competitiveness’ which I’ve referred to time and time again and also in change programs and exec coaching. Why: because quite simply, the principles work and have proven to be critical success enablers for me and the many others I’ve shared them with.

The core principles below could therefore serve you well too and help you stand out as a respected and admired leader compared to the masses of average leaders out there who put themselves first and employees last rather than the other way around.

In all, there are 45 guiding principles or prescriptions as Tom calls them, ones that can help you to Survive & Thrive During Chaos and I’ve condensed these down into the 11 that have proven to be the most valuable.

THE REALITY TODAY

You can no longer predict with accuracy for the long-term in todays business environment because outside effects like the Coronavirus, cultural, societal and political events coupled with financial, technological, operational, sales and marketing changes are accelerating at such a fast and furious pace that only the smartest people leaders and their organisations will learn to live with chaos and thrive.

To survive and thrive during chaos you must:

1. Make employees (key workers) on the front lines dealing with customers and their needs the company’s heroes because competitive advantage can be gained from ‘service added’ from motivated, highly engaged, committed employees. Serve their needs and wants and they’ll serve the customer needs and wants. Serve the customer needs and yours and the organisations needs will be served.

The inverted pyramid in ‘Thriving On Chaos’ illustrates how the pyramid needs to be turned on it’s head and rather than the executive teams being placed at the top, the importance goes to frontline troops, those in the trenches dealing firsthand with customer needs.

The chart was originally designed for a retail organisation but can and should obviously run true regardless of organisation, industry, geographic region or whatever.

Ken Blanchard talks a lot about servant leadership too and many modern-day greats also talk about putting customers first. My own style and attitude has been to put employees first for the reason stated earlier, i.e. if you put the employees first, they will better serve your customers.

In my career, I’ve seen many smart executives get this so wrong and put themselves and their needs first. If you want a deeper dive into this subject and how you can make it work, I highly recommend the book ‘Employees First, Customers Second: Turning Conventional Management Upside Down’ by Vineet Nayar, which I believe is now being taught at Harvard Business School.

The other 10 principles that follow support such a stance.

2. Leaders must personify a sense of urgency to clear away the things that get in the way of progress, including bureaucracy and limiting rules that slow things down, and frustrate the hell out of people. Eliminate as much electronic or social media communication as possible in favour of human-to-human communications; connect with your people using deeper and better quality communications like audio and video, which is more relevant now that more teams are working remotely. Deliver your messages with better context and create an opportunity for immediate feedback that can be acted on swiftly.

3. Ensure relevant information and reporting is shared throughout the organisation, transparency is key to getting things done better and faster. Relevant information provides the (potential) power to make this happen and in a timely manner, it motivates, speeds decision making and action taking towards the achievement of the desired end results

4. Become obsessed with responsiveness to employee and customer needs and trends, and focus on long-term relationships that retain and grow revenues — understand the lifetime value of your employees and customers because losing either means higher costs in replacing them.

5. Under-promise and over-deliver or promise and exceed expectations if you know you can because under-delivery on promises, even if service is good, will still hurt you. This doesn’t mean people shouldn’t be stretched but setting outlandish expectations in difficult times fall flat more than they rise high.

6. Apply Kaizen (continuous incremental improvements) because many small and seemingly mundane differences can create awesome collective impacts over time. It’s small fry to do but massive in benefits. Often, opportunities for quantum leaps come from the foundation set by some of the more incremental gains because they stimulate more creative thinking and ideas.

7. Be obsessed with learning and especially from employees on the front lines and their customers. Have marketers spend time in the field and key execs spend time ‘back to the floor’ and not sitting behind desks, spreadsheets and data.

8. Test small and build big with lots of small pilots, they’re low in risk but high in reward for the ones you know will work and are worthy of investment as opposed to theory and speculation.

9. Learn to ethically borrow from the best, take what’s working and add your own unique slant to make it yours. Steve Jobs was well known for this approach and yet many viewed him as the innovator because he took what was ‘out there’ already in some form and made it better or combined it with something he already planned or had, to make it even more useful.

10. Actively encourage people to participate in new initiatives or changes, involve them and they’re more likely to get behind the vision and action plans, dictate to them and they’re more likely to resist, it’s human nature. The number two motivator for employees in a global poll showed that people want to ‘feel in on things’ and not just subjected to them. Number one was to be fully appreciated so it’s not always about the money! If you want highly engaged employees, engage them properly and not as token gestures.

11. Demand total and utter integrity, live up to commitments to internal customers (employees) and external customers (they pay the bills). Set high moral and ethical standards and live up to them. This builds credibility, respect, trust and possibly even admiration in your leadership, which is one of the highest accolades anyone leading people can ask for.

Whilst I have used my own style and language within the above, I take no credit for the originality of the content, this sits wholly with Tom Peters and all credit should go to him for his original book — I’m just passing on my version in the hope that it will be useful to people who aspire to become strong and principled future leaders.

IN SUMMARY

Follow these ‘guiding principles’ if you want your people to commit their best efforts in helping you achieve your goals and objectives. As point 1 clearly states, make your frontline employees and keyworkers the heroes of the business, serve their needs and they will serve customer needs, serve customer need and yours and the organisations needs will be better served.

As a parting note and believe it or not, Thriving on Chaos was actually published in 1987 and it just goes to show that in these challenging times, there have always been these challenging times. The messages are even truer today, however, than when Tom originally wrote them and I’m sure he wouldn’t even have envisaged how his principles would stand the test of time.

It also demonstrates that the fundamental truths of good management and great leadership are fundamental for a reason — they’re timeless.

I hope you enjoyed the post and will use and benefit from the ‘guiding principles’ in your career.

Best,

Reece

You can check out more of my leadership blogs here or check out my website here.

#leadership #thriveonchaos #employeesfirst