The only constant that we know of is change. We can spend our entire working lives doing the same thing over and over and for a time this can work, but lately, things have been more and more uncertain.
What worked for our fathers and grandfathers is not working for us and we need to know what to do to fix this. How can we be the optimal version of ourselves both in work and in life, and how do we become better when we don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow?
Create a strategy
One of the things you need to do is to be more like Chesapeake Energy (the ticker is OTCMKTS: CHKAQ) and envision a strategy for growth. Bring the greatest minds of your company together and figure out how and what to do for the next five years. After that, the next ten years.
It is much easier to know what to do when you have a plan or a goal that is not rigid. You have to be flexible in your planning because you never know what can occur. It’s almost like getting locked out of your house; is there another way you can get in? If not, you need to plan for that.
Study the best, then think of ways to improve upon their methods
If you and your group are having trouble implementing a strategy, the best thing you can do in that instance is to look at what your competitors are doing and figure out a way to improve upon it. I wouldn’t say copy it down bit by bit, but you need to know what the best are doing then you can tweak it to your company’s ability and overall strategy. If you find you do not have the resources to implement those kinds of strategies, there’s no shame in figuring out how to do something cheaper, or with less personnel, until you figure out what it is you can actually do.
Keeping an eye on your competitors, within legal options, of course, will help you understand what you need to know and what you need to do to be on a higher level. If you can implement a better strategy than what they have, you will be in a position to match, if not surpass, what they have been able to create.
Try to anticipate the newest emerging technologies, and be the first to use them
I believe a good example of those who did not do this is the print industry. Newspapers did not embrace the internet as much as they could have, and that’s why so many of them went under or were bought out by bigger media companies. A lot of times, we get so used to doing things a certain way that we think that way is the only way. And it can hurt our ego to change up what we are doing to adjust to a new style of operation.
At a certain point, however, the writing will be on the wall that what we are doing is not working and we need to set our pride aside and figure out what the newest technology is. If we cannot figure that out, we need to implement a new strategy ourselves that maybe other people will be inclined to follow. We can then show them the way, for a fee, of course. If we can do this, not only will we survive any upcoming changes, our whole business may thrive where others can’t because we have something that they don’t.
The executive class really needs to consider how to implement the newest technologies into their business strategy without disrupting the flow of work. I understand it can be difficult to change course, especially when things have been working so well up to that point, but it is always helpful to keep an eye on upcoming trends and technologies to stay ahead of the game.
One of the fundamental issues that businesses struggle with and that keeps them from growing is failing to embrace change. Everything changes, even the things that we believe don’t change. We need to be honest with ourselves and make an objective assessment of not only where our company is, but where our industry as a whole is and where it is going.
