Have you seen the new ad for Shredded Wheat cereal? Unchanged for more than 100 years, the iconic cereal promises to continue its boring way. In the ad, the corporate guy in a suit announces: "We put the NO in Innovation."
If you are boring and proud of your 100 year history of never changing, you too can be Shredded Wheat.
Odds are though you need a different approach. Given what's being thrown at us 24/7, improvisation and good reflexes count more than ever. No wonder simulations and gaming is so popular. It's exactly the training and experience we need at work to navigate every day's helping of unexpected threats.
So here's the thing. Control is an illusion. Get over it! Everyone attached to your mission needs to make 10,000 decisions every day, confronting challenges unimagined by you this morning. Do you really think there is any competitive advantage in commanding an army of corporate droids, clones with one way of thinking and acting and looking? Isn't it more feasible to have hundreds of different life forms, points of view and intelligences looking at the same problem or managing the same dilemma??
Problem definition is the challenge and focused creativity is the response.
You need to engage your team, your evangelists, your members in real-time inquiries to grow confidence and skills, to test assumptions and challenge conventional wisdom. You need a shared set of principles to guide action. You need clarity around your shared values and agreement around your goals.
Sure, you need efficient processes, but more than that you need transparency. The decisions you make are not as important as HOW YOU MAKE THE DECISIONS.The black box is empty, and we know it.
Keep your eyes on the prize. HOW you mobilize others to achieve your mission IS your BRAND of experiencing the world. Who are you taking along for the ride?
