Steve Niesman is North America’s President and CEO for NTT DATA Business Solutions, directing operations for the mid-market SAP provider.
There’s an old proverb that says, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” But as difficult as it sounds, each of us must lead our organizations to go both fast and far together.
As leaders, change can feel like a constant. These changes can come from shifts in technology, industry, your specific goals or new governmental policies. And I don’t believe it will slow down.
The challenge becomes finding ways to work within that changing environment and keeping employees from experiencing change fatigue or losing engagement. Everyone knows that you must stay in tune with the macros and micros, and we must go beyond that. No one person can stay current enough and move fast enough to keep up with this pace of change. We need to rely on our teams more than ever, no matter what type of leader we are.
Extreme Change Requires Better Self-Awareness And Collaboration
You have to model the change you want to see, rely on your people and be courageous yet vulnerable. In addition, you need to be hyperaware of what you’re bringing to your conversations. If you’re feeling unsure or frustrated, your people will see it. They can also tell when you’re sugarcoating or withholding information. It’s okay to say, “I’m likely 50% right, and I’m likely 50% wrong.”
I find decision-making works best when using Colin Powell’s 40-70 rule, where you get 40-70% of the data to make the best decision possible. Where you fit on that sliding data scale depends on how reversible a decision is. If it’s reversible, you’re on the lower end. If it’s not, you’re on the upper end. This is to avoid gridlock or “analysis paralysis”.
It’s important to understand that you shouldn’t do this on your own. Your people play an integral part in your decision-making process. When you’re all working together, the goal is to triangulate meaningful insights using data from multiple sources. That means you’re not just talking to one customer, you’re talking to multiple customers. You’re talking to multiple suppliers and analysts. You’re getting multiple viewpoints from your team. And then the final mile is to go with your gut and make a decision. Don’t wait for perfection. It won’t come. Perfect is the enemy of good. Give yourself and your people enough latitude to fail and recover through iteration.
Because everything is speeding up, the missions and visions you’re setting will get shorter and shorter. You’re not looking three years out, you’re looking at the next quarter. You’re embracing and empowering your people to make decisions and be a part of the solutions with significantly more input. It’s also how you get buy-in and engagement as you move forward.
When it comes to your people, don’t prescribe or mandate how to gather information or create recommendations based on what they find. Teach them how to stay current and hold them accountable, without making it punitive. The point is to reward innovation and effort while leaning on people with strengths that you lack so that you can create better outcomes.
What Adaptability Really Looks Like
Saying that we need to be adaptable is easy. Actually doing it is what’s often hard. The key is to both navigate and orchestrate change rather than let it happen to you. This means working with your teams and leveraging technology to upskill people, redesign workflows and rethink redundant processes. It means continually evaluating your organizational structure and roles within it to ensure that people and processes work together to support your mission and purpose. Continual success is most often decided by how well the symbiotic relationship between people and technology works. You’re likely to struggle if you lean too heavily on one or the other, or overlook one completely.
What you’re going for:
• Make sure structure, strategy and culture are all pulling in the same direction.
• Normalize healthy debate and new ideas. Employees at all levels should have the means to question you or how things are done and propose improvements without fear.
• Recognize and reward smart risk-taking and problem-solving. By doing so, you drive continuous improvement and can help employees feel more in control.
• Identify individuals to develop and give them ownership of key initiatives. By cultivating a pipeline of capable, adaptable leaders, you ensure that your company can sustain momentum through change and beyond it.
What you’re not going for:
• Don’t reward the success of individual goals at the expense of team goals, even if those individuals are the ones you want to develop. If a few people succeed but the overall group isn’t hitting the target, you’re not just creating the wrong outcome, you’re eroding trust as others could view your actions as favoritism.
• Don’t sacrifice your organization’s core values or cultural strengths for the sake of change. Yes, change often requires shifts in mindset, but those evolutions should never betray your culture. When people go silent and disagreements go underground, you’ve lost.
• Don’t abdicate your leadership role by being hands-off. The team needs to see you actively engaged and invested, not disappearing and leaving them rudderless.
• Don’t try to eliminate resistance. Instead, use resistance as a bellwether to determine if your changes are meaningful and clear, as well as an opportunity to discover possible blind spots that might require iteration. Feedback comes in many forms.
Take Heart
The obstacles to navigating change are real, but so are the opportunities. It’s okay to be scared—and to admit that. Vulnerability and open communication can help your team come together and succeed as a unit. If you lead with courage and a collaborative spirit, you stand a better chance of thriving no matter what comes your way.
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