The Complexity of Navigating Change in Our 'Always On, Always Changing' World.
In the last few years I have found myself in new roles that required change, turnaround or transformation (or all three) in the marketing services space. I didn’t go seeking specific ‘change roles’ but interestingly that is what they became and so with it I’ve accumulated and experienced the highs and lows of managing change and transformation. Managing change is complex and hard and you certainly don’t get everything ‘right’, but the experience of leading and working with teams to shape change and transformation and operating a business on a day to day basis has prompted me to share some gentle observations on how to manage both.
“We didn’t do anything wrong, but somehow, we lost”. The words of Nokia’s CEO back in 2013 following its acquisition by Microsoft, trying to explain the demise of an at-one-time extraordinarily successful global mobile telecoms business.
Thirteen years earlier, the impact that the £23 billion UK 3G mobile licence auction (2000) was to have on business and consumers was little known. But change came and quickly: content, distribution, technology, consumer behaviour, routes to market and speed to market which was to fundamentally influence and create an altogether new world order for businesses, brands and consumers: Always On and Always Changing.
Managing change isn’t easy and straightforward. Activating a turnaround or sustaining a successful and ‘always on’ transition is complex. But one thing is clear. Change affects all businesses and today it’s just as relevant and important for high achieving businesses as it is for those that are under-performing. Why, because change is continuous and if it isn’t embraced then a business performing well will likely perform less well and a business under-performing will in effect, lose.
As we know, history is littered with examples of great businesses that got bitten by change. The marketing world is no different. What is changing and will continue to change are routes to market, brands, products, platforms, investment, operating models, technology, data, life-cycles, production, ideas, creativity, innovation, talent, skills, resource, customers and communications: Always On and Always ChanginG.
More specifically for marketing services businesses, change is everywhere, be it programmatic, AI, VR, AR, content, content marketing, events, PR, advertising, media, packaging, data and more. The impact that technology has had on the world of marketing is evident but the challenge and question for many businesses operating in marketing services now is: What business are we in? What business should we be in? Where should we operate in the value chain and how?
Change and transformation isn’t just about disruption and ‘digitization’ or ideas and innovation. It is those things but it’s more. Change and managing change can manifest itself in different ways. What is clear is that change is always, well, changing and it’s just as relevant for businesses performing well as it is for those performing not so well, it’s relevant for businesses of any size or market or industry and it it’s no longer one size fits all.
It’s about harnessing disruption, digitization, ideas and innovation with cash-flow, overhead, talent, resources, skills, revenue, margins, mark ups, proposition, vision, ambition, values, structure, markets, routes to market, investment, technology, insight, data, competition, pricing, customers, consumers and much more. They are all changeable or affected by change.
Managing, leading and operating in businesses today, is tough. It’s also complex with so many levers to turn, some with a light touch, others with a more heavy hand. But that is the nature of business today.
So what can you do to plan, manage and navigate through our Always On and Always Changing world of business?
1.Know your business. Many businesses fail because they lose sight of not just how the business is performing, but why. It’s easy to take your eye off managing ‘business as usual’ when there is so much change around you. But having a clear understanding of how the business is performing is critical. In the absence of the how and the why, often the what (the action) is misplaced.
So it might be an idea to establish a performance dashboard (sales, revenues, costs, margins, mark up, portfolio, profitability, forecasts, cash-flow, overhead, ancillaries) and use it to gain insight into business performance to activate change and quickly where required (a new supplier, a portfolio review, mark up benchmarks, margin improvement, cost reduction, revenue per head, profit per head, cost out, contract renegotiation, investment and much more).
A talented team and managing successful change and transformation becomes irrelevant if you don’t get the day to day business and performance fundamentals right.
2. The ‘engender’ agenda.
Have a vision and ambition, a spark, a trigger, a guiding light and a well-articulated route-map. Where are we going and how are we going to get there? Importantly, are you up for it, are your teams supportive of it, do they get it, do they feel included? Have you communicated it? In effect, it’s not just a case of have a plan, but have we got a plan, do we have the right set of skills and talent, how do we activate, when do we activate and what will we activate?
That’s often difficult to achieve when you’re in the thick of reviewing and managing the day to day operations but it’s critical. Continuous change requires a well-articulated route-map.
3. Proposition, proposition, proposition. New is good, shiny is great. After all, change is always on and always changing. But it can sometimes be distracting and cluttered. So even when it’s noisy and new, make sure you have a clear and simple business or brand proposition: what you do, why you’re doing it and how it will be of benefit.
Through continuous business, market, product and technology change, the default is often to want to ‘be and do everything’ to cover off all of the bases. Harness it absolutely and weave it into how your business evolves, but focus on your core proposition - doing it well and sticking to it will reap the benefits.
4. The ‘What Ifs’. The true course of business success (and failure) never runs smooth. But one thing is for sure. Change will come, because it’s now continuous. So prepare and be flexible.
Think about the What Ifs: what if we exceed sales or miss our targets, what if a new competitor enters our market, what if we have the opportunity to enter new markets, what if the exchange rate changes, what if we win a new bit of business, what if we can’t access or recruit the right talent, what if the dynamics of the market changes, what if we can’t achieve margins, what if our suppliers let us down, what if our proposition isn’t clearly understood, what if we have an unhappy customer, what if we exceed our targets, what if we exceed our cash-flow forecast.
The What Ifs should be about looking up, looking ahead and looking outward and being prepared as much as you can to action accordingly.
5. Doing nothing is not an option. Businesses fail in large part because of an absence of decision-making. Making easy decisions is, well, easy. But making the tough decisions is hard, complicated and more than often, they come too late. Know your business, understand your business and address and activate a plan before change arrives.
6. Pace and resilience. Doing nothing is not an option, but when change is required, do it with urgency and do it properly. Plan it, interrogate it and communicate it. Be resilient and do it in bite sized chunks.
7. Going it alone. You can’t. Change is hard, it’s tough and it can be complex. Change involves turning many levers with each lever representing a different skill or expertise. It requires listening, collaboration, inclusiveness, recognising and building on the talent and teams and most importantly communicating and harnessing expertise, be it financial, people, operations, sales and marketing. Make sure you have a strong team around you. Lead the vision but empower the team to manage and activate change with you.
8. The all, not the few. Change is for everyone. Everyone has the ability to influence, suggest, communicate, participate and benefit and yet many organisations are drawn to the few and not the many. Make change and speed of change in your organisation relevant for everyone. Establish a way across the whole organisation to collect, share, build knowledge and learn what’s changing. Invest in knowledge capture and sharing, L&D, R&D, innovation and test and learning. Continuous change and transformation is for the all, not the few.
Our new world order for business is here to stay. The role of leaders, teams and individuals in organisations of any size or scale has changed, is changing and will continue to change. There will be many more examples of businesses that didn’t do anything wrong and lost. But if there is one thing that businesses can do to mitigate that risk, it is to recognise that change is now continuous and to lead, shape and manage the business accordingly: Always on and Always Changing.
