Toys R Us filed for bankruptcy in September, 2017 and closed in June 2018 in part due to e-commerce competition
Yes, you’re making money. Yes, you’re in markets around the world. Yes, you’ve got good people working with you. And yet, your business model is collapsing. If you don’t make a course change, your business won’t survive.
No Obvious Playbook
What’s changed? The items you’re selling are no longer in nearly as much demand. The colors have gone out of fashion. People don’t buy your items the way they used to. The buyer, not the seller, has the upper hand, and buyers aren’t looking for features and benefits. The good people working for you want more from their jobs than a paycheck. They want meaning!
Somehow, you’ve got to change what you’re doing, and you’ve got to do it now. You’ve got to come up with something new. Or new ways of selling. Or new ways to inspire employees. Maybe all three. There’s no obvious playbook for the change. No precedent. Nothing.
The way problems get solved at your company is via linear thinking – problem definition, solution, implementation. Neuroscientists call it convergent thinking. But linear thinking won’t work. You can no longer react and adjust, make a tweak here and there.
Hate to Admit Vulnerability
You feel vulnerable. Understandably. But vulnerability isn’t something you want to admit to. You consider it a weakness. Yet, says Brene Brown, University of Houston research professor, “…without vulnerability, there is no creativity or innovation. Why? Because there is nothing more uncertain than the creative process, and there is absolutely no innovation without failure. Show me a culture in which vulnerability is framed as weakness and I’ll show you a culture struggling to come up with fresh ideas and new perspectives.” The antidote to vulnerability is courage, Brown writes. You can’t have one without the other.
Review for a second: Your company is going south. You’ve got to change. Linear thinking won’t work. You feel vulnerable, really vulnerable. Now what? You’ve got to reach for courage. Some things you can do:
Try Stuff
Experiment the way forward. In the nomenclature of design thinking, prototype and test. Then prototype and test again. How many times did Edison fail on his way to inventing the light bulb? You won’t know if it works until you try it. You’re playing the infinite game where winning is continuing to play. Surprise! With experimentation, the outcomes may be way better than you thought.
Last summer in Honduras on the island of Roatan, the women of Honduras Threads didn’t know what they would find when they went seeking customers. But they had to find out because the existence of their business depends on finding new markets. Some store owners liked the Threads’ hand-embroidered table runners and pillows. They would sell. But so would greeting cards and Christmas ornaments. Could they make those? Turns out store owners who sell to a million people a year who get off the cruise ships on Roatan can and do sell Christmas ornaments all year long. Cruisers want souvenirs made in Honduras (very few souvenirs are) to take home. So were born the Honduras Threads greeting card and Christmas ornament lines.
Consciously Listen
Take time to listen. To talk and listen to yourself and to others. What are you noticing? Consciously shift to relying on your senses. As you might if you were meditating. Is there an idea out of left field you can build on? Maybe coming from someone who knows nothing about your business and whose observations you thought you would never seriously consider. Maybe coming from a mash-up of seemingly unrelated concepts? Oranges and rush-hour driving, for example. Coming up with solutions isn’t an either/or proposition. Make the playing field larger to accommodate several ideas.
An industrial products company started by looking through mounds of data to find what the data was saying. Buried there an executive found two sales people who were having tremendous results by selling into an industry hundreds of other company sales people ignored. The executive figured out the two sales people used techniques which had nothing to do with the sales literature and which no one else in the company could replicate. The executive trailed one of the sales people for more than a year figuring out how to systemize the sales person’s approach. Together the executive and the sales person figured out a process, redid the sales literature, and tested it on others. When they rolled out the new sales program, sales perked up. Then after getting feedback, the executive adjusted the price. Sales took off.
Build a Safe Crucible
Design thinking workshop in Toronto to solve the housing problem for refugees
Build safe space for creative collaboration. The room matters. Windows. Tables with stools. White boards and markers. Set them up so people really can talk with each other and capture relevant thinking. Design the conversation to mitigate bias, so everyone has an equitable voice. Sticky notes. Sticky notes are the great democratizers; introverts and extroverts have equal voices. Supplies to make low resolution, inexpensive prototypes: cardboard, play dough, pipe cleaners. Seeing the big picture on wall-size charts, building the 3-D prototypes allows for everyone to see the connections that make up the whole of an idea.
At a manufacturing company formed by a merger of two companies and with two locations, the employees weren’t on the same page. Some felt their only purpose was to make money. The “why” of a company is more important than ever. Making money is an outcome. To know “why” and to be able to articulate the “why” is to be able to inspire others. Employees will follow not because of the company’s dream but because their dream matches the company’s. The company is writing and rewriting its “why” so all employees can buy in.
We Ourselves Have Achieved It
Experiment your way forward. Take time to listen. Build safe space. Need assistance because you’re at a critical crossroads where the directional signals are undecipherable? Conbrio is all about experimenting, listening, building safe spaces in order to reveal strategic solutions. When our work is done and things have been completed, we want you to be able to say, “We ourselves have achieved it.”
The women of Honduras Threads learning their way forward at a recent workshop
Related Topics:
Seeking Buried Treasure in a Sea of Sticky Notes
Why Change Projects in Organizations Fail
Related Case Studies:
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology
Duke University