Editor’s Note: Welcome to our weekly Reality Check column. We’ve gathered a group of visionaries and veterans in the mobile industry to give their insights into the marketplace.
There are two embedded myths in your company that must be shattered to emerge from this recession stronger and more competitive. Given the length of this downturn, these parasite beliefs have had longer to permeate your culture and embed themselves into your employees’ actions, words and decisions. If you dispel them through a progressive and innovative leadership style, you will not only beat your competition, you will be regarded as a great leader. If you ignore them, the best and brightest in your company will leave to join those who have established growth cultures.
The first myth is “I can do it myself.” The taproot of selfishness can be hard to wrench free. After all, your employees survived two years of layoffs by proving their relative value to the business. They shouldered the productivity burden of several, leaping over tall deadlines in a single bound. They picked up the slack – no doubt about it. The demands of growth, however, wait for no individual. It takes many to scale this wall. The quicker you recognize the amazing individual efforts of each of your fellow survivors and pull them together, the faster the collective talents of your organization will produce disproportionate results.
The second myth is harder to dislodge: “Play it safe.” We eliminated a lot of risks we should never have taken with the latest downturn, and in the process threw the “risk management” baby out with the “risk elimination” bathwater. Competitive advantage results when we identify, quantify, manage and outmaneuver risk. Your employees “played it safe” and are now looking to take on more adventures. They remained in a department they should have moved out of months ago for the “good of the company” and now need to be promoted to a new function. They have a mental (or physical) drawer full of ideas that need to see the light of day. They yearn for the excitement and allure of newness and regeneration. But they are afraid that they are “next.” Are you encouraging this fear? What’s the potential reward of taking on more risk now versus next year? The timing is right to start to take calculated risks: your competitors know it, and your investors are expecting it.
There is no doubt that the recession tumult will end soon. Your company is poised to grow, and its ascent is only hindered by the dual drags of “I can do it myself” and “Play it safe.” How will you respond? How will you lead?
Jim Patterson is CEO & co-founder of Mobile Symmetry, a start-up created for carriers to solve the problems of an increasingly mobile-only society. He was most recently President – Wholesale Services for Sprint and has a career that spans more than 18 years in telecom and technology. He welcomes your comments at [email protected].
