While economic in nature, the recession had significant and lasting impact beyond the numbers.
FOR EMPLOYEES
FOR CUSTOMERS
Leadership responded with a shift from command and control to an adaptive management style. Focus shifted from financials and efficiency to transparency and ethical practices because employees and customers ranked both as high as quality.
SIG Responded With Our Own Shift
As business focus shifted from retention to engagement of employees and from transaction to relationship with customers we built the first generation human-centric planning and operating system for disruptive change.
We engaged employees and customers in collaborative “real time” research for rapid insight into needs and behaviours. Management intensives were designed for agile, responsive solutions.
Then came the COVID-19 Pandemic and…
FOR EMPLOYEES
FOR CUSTOMERS
As relationships with employees and customers became strained and frayed leaders shifted to transformative leadership. Hybrid workplaces, a focus on wellness, flexibility and empathy were key to battling the uncertainty that gripped organizations.
Yet, management knew it was not enough. In two global surveys, one at the beginning of the pandemic and the other in its dying days, CEOs had two fundamental concerns;
In the beginning they knew their business needed to change but the right model was still an unknown.
By the end of the pandemic CEOs knew if their business did not change it would not survive beyond 10 years.
The uncertainty and stress was intense.
But there was something else too.
While the struggle was hard, the emerging resilience of people was profound. They adapted, found new ways to work and serve. The very best of human nature rose to the challenge.
CEOs saw it too. They saw opportunity in supporting and fueling their employee and customer’s human nature.
To meet this new opportunity, CEOs had two questions to answer
What does it mean to be essential to our employees and customers?
What does it take to be meaningfully differentiated from our competitors?
To answer these two fundamental questions we developed the Performance Ecosystem, a new operating system and business model for the Age of Disruption
Each network relies on the others for growth and success. Leaders disrupt the disruption when they focus on the inter-dependence of each zone’s performance and growth.
The Performance Ecosystem will become your company, division, department or team’s unfair advantage. Here’s why.
All organizations, including your competitors have one but, very few are aware or know how to use it, creating significant competitive advantage for you.
Great performances are big business. Ask Taylor Swift. Or The Rolling Stones.
Mick Jagger famously took control of the business of The Rolling Stones and redefined concert tours and the concert experience for fans.
Over decades of iteration and experimentation Jagger designed a performance ecosystem that elevated the music experience for the crowds of customers, unlocked the performance potential for each member of the band and accelerated the sales growth of the band.
The result has been several of the highest grossing tours of all time, a unique ability to fill huge stadiums and continual relevance that now stretches into the band’s seventh decade.
The Performance Ecosystem answers the two fundamental questions of essentialness and meaningful differentiation by creating a venue of your company, division, department or team on which your employees give their best performance, every day.
All external change events; social, economic, technological, political and health are disruptions to your company and its Performance Ecosystem. The zones independently adapt to the change event, changing the needs and behaviours of your employees and customers. (Think about how the pandemic affected each of the zones in your company)
SIG clients use the Dynamic Responsiveness© process in the 90-Day Incomparable Canvas and the Thrive Leadership Program to transform change events and disruption into growth opportunities for employees, customers and company.
Identify and assess priority changes in employee and customer needs and behaviours as they emerge from the disruption in your business, markets or the world
Extract insight from the unique data points on why needs and behaviours are changing as a result of the disruption
Create a solution that responds meaningfully to the change in need and our nature to be better.
In our experience when clients use Dynamic Responsiveness© to “read” the changes in needs and behaviours of their employees and customers they build commitment, trust and goodwill because the response supports their growth and success.
It’s a biology concept that means growth does not stop at some pre-determined point. The Performance Ecosystem model brings this same scientific thinking to your company, division, department or team.
We are all capable of growing our capacity and potential for success. Our brains rewire and form new connections in response to change, expanding our capacity for growth through neuroplasticity. Think about how we adapted to working from home through the pandemic.
Your company, division and department are plastic too, flexing and adapting to changes in external conditions. Think about the hiring and layoffs cycle and hybrid workplaces.
Combine human neuroplasticity, the plasticity of your company, division or department and, the near constant change and disruption and you have the conditions for indeterminate growth.
The Performance Ecosystem and its operating system has evolved and been battle tested over 20 years by leaders of global brands to tech start ups.
It has shifted the management model from prescriptive to progressive.
It reduces uncertainty, encourages fearless exploration and experimentation of solutions.
Most importantly, it has successfully transitioned leaders and their companies through multiple recessions, three transformational business ages and one pandemic.
a belief in the power of our human nature to make companies better, and
a belief that employees and customers are the greatest renewable resource of any successful company.
I care deeply about helping people realize their full potential and the extraordinary opportunities we create for our company, customers and community when we reach it.
My 30+ years of guiding leaders of global, national and local businesses and brands through 5 recessions, 3 different business ages and 1 pandemic has given me some insight into how a leader can transform their good company, department or team into an incomparable place of growth, advantage and relevance for employees and customers.
Experience, learning and insight that has been baked into every SIG product and program, including the 90-Day Incomparable Canvas and the Thrive Leadership Program.
The vison and ambition to become first choice. They refuse to play by their competitor’s rules. For them, fast-following is an oxymoron.
They have a low tolerance for status quo. Just the thought of it leaves a bad taste in their mouth. They don’t settle, they explore, believing things can always be better.
They see their employees and customers as their company’s greatest renewable resource and source of advantage.
Leaders hire me with the shared mission of transforming their good companies into exceptional performers.
In my 30+ years of guiding leaders and their teams through the rapid change and disruption of 5 difficult recessions, 3 transitional business ages and a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic, I have witnessed first-hand both the corporate hell of relentless disruption and the strength of our human nature to rise above it and be better.
My purpose is to equip leaders with a leadership system that successfully navigates their company through the new world of business to a place where growth, profit, ambitions and aspirations fuse to become an incomparable force of growth and performance.