One way of transforming your business no matter what you do is to engage in what I call possibility thinking. “To change anything we need to be able to defy reality at certain levels”, says Mensa Otabil. In order to move forward there has to be a thinking of how to get to where you want to go. We need to set lofty goals in our minds.
In the middle of a crisis people are looking for answers or solutions to problems. Business is grounded, customers are few and far in between, revenues have dropped, salaries are outstanding and families might be suffering. The consequences of running a business in a crisis such as a pandemic, bankruptcy or a major loss can be very trying for the Chief Executive Officer and that is why you have to embrace possibility thinking: It all begins with you having an honest audit of things as they are. In strategic thinking discussions I like to phrase the question:” Where are we now?” Resources, mindsets, personnel, credit and losses, take a proper account of everything so that you have a clear picture of where you are. As you may have realized by now, the question does not necessarily refer to location, but rather conditions or a situation that the business is in. If you can do a honest audit, you are at the beginning of the solution. The audit includes answering and owning up to wrong turns and twists that might have occurred during a business process. The idea is to learn from what went wrong, so that we do not end up making the same mistakes twice.
There has to be desired state that you have in mind for your business. This is where you defy reality a little.
The next line of thinking borders on the question: Where are we going? There has to be desired state that you have in mind for your business. This is where you defy reality a little. Some CEOs talk about being number one in their sector. Even that has to be properly defined and broken down. A desired state could refer to turn over, sales levels, customer portfolio, and market share and beyond what we call key performance indicators (KPIs) there should be outcomes from the perspective of staff morale, expertise and culture. These things have to change if we want our business to improve. The key answer to this question should be a desired state in our minds. Once that desired state is established, the next question that comes to mind has to do with basic things we have to do to make this happen. So what follows is the question: How do we get there? This question can be answered through a consideration of drawing up a list of activities that we may possibly engage in to get us closer to our desired state. So, to answer this question, we might possibly draw up a “To Do” list which would itemise basic moves and activity we ought to engage in to get to our desired state. Business is dynamic. When we look at it critically normally we ought to find options. It also involves being prudent, in other words examining paths that we need to take before we take them. Larger organizations have the options of going through the motions of Research and Development (R&D). There is a direct linkage between research and results. Those who take their time to research properly often get better results. The list of moves and items you make should help you answer the next question: What do we need to get there?
The last two questions are quite similar but in implementation they are slightly different. After making a list from answering the question: How do we get there, you actually make the moves and engage the items that are relevant by answering the question: What do we need to get there? Do you implement financial aid or loan taking, additional training for a concept that you wish to engage in? Recruitment of additional hands to carry out certain specialized functions, licenses, permits and proper facilities, all of these could be relevant depending on the kind of business activity you have in mind. The idea is to select the most appropriate and actionable activities and actions and implement them. Or find a way to implement them if there are obstacles. In the process of implementation there could be hindrances and obstacles that would show up in terms of threats and weaknesses from the organizational point of view. These instances are captured in a question: What will we meet on the way? Threats are naturally discouraging. The number one threat in the minds of business managers is the lack of finance to implement activity which is desperately needed. But our plans must be such that our opportunities in terms of market, great personnel and other resources will help us overshadow our threats. One other vital question is the time marker. Time and tide waits for no man and so we have to have our time limitations in mind to implement any plan. How long will it take us to get there? Is our marker of time. During our planning process about achieving those possibilities we ought to be able to put a length of time to it all. Time makes us conscious of the process and the progress. Suppose I’m building an interactive website with which I hope to market ideas and other physical commodities, I ought to be able to know the length of time it would require to build the website, optimize it and attract a certain number of visitors to it, hoping to convert some of those visitors to clients. I could give myself one month to build the site, and another three months to optimize. At the end of four months, I ought to be able to hold myself accountable for meeting my deadlines or not meeting them. The last question is logical: How do I know I am there? At the end of the period of time you set for yourself and after you may have used all your resources for the process, indicators ought to tell you if you have achieved your objective. Has your market share changed? Has your customer portfolio expanded? What is the opinion of the purchasing public about your product? Are you winning customers or losing them? There are a ton of questions you can ask depending on what you are aiming at.
The number one threat in the minds of business managers is the lack of finance to implement activity which is desperately needed.
The questions for this process are normally seven in number: Where are am I now?; Where am I going?; How do I get there?; What will I meet on the way? What will I need to get there?; How long will it take me to get there? and How do I know that I am there?
Success needs to be managed and maintained, so often we ask How do I remain there? In other words, what do I have to do to hold the position I found myself in? All these help us to come out of a fix. If you are in business, you will find yourself in a storm one time or the other. These questions help us to ride the storm and come out victorious if only we can ask them and answer them truthfully.
* Ogundadegbe is a renowned management consultant. He trains managers and executives in the arts of Customer Service, Human Resources Management and Management strategy ([email protected]).
