An Executive Survival Guide: Pro-active, Practical Strategies in a Rapidly Changing World

The world is changing – FAST! Look outside your company at the changing competitive and customer landscape. It looks more like time-lapse photography.

Competitors come and go. Customers come and go. Products come and go.

Needs change with the wind.

Meanwhile, your company is having to accept the fact that it is now in a game of who can react the fastest, whose systems are most adaptable to change, whose products can sprint from thought to shelf in the quickest time when the gun fires.

Amidst all of this is the humble executive. I use the world “humble” not lightly. Because in a rapidly changing world, having the humility to accept the processes going on around us (rather than fighting it) and working with those processes to survive will become a key quality for those that do, in-deed, survive.

The demands on executives that have ramped up year-on-year will only quicken their momentum. If executives play by the old rules they will be mincemeat in no time at all. When circumstances shift as fast as they are, executives need to take a strategic approach to meeting the oncoming challenges, and having done so they need to act on their strategy and learn and evolve it.

The choice is simple.

ONE. Play the old way in the face of increasing challenges leading to an increasing sense of overwhelm and inability to cope causing stress on a number of levels affecting not just work-life but all aspects of your life.

TWO. Pause. Step-back. Detach enough from what is happening to adopt a strategic approach to the oncoming challenges. Such an approach allows you to discriminate between what is and isn’t worth pursuing. It will allow you to focus on what is truly important to you in the coming years.

To support you in developing your own strategic approach to a rapidly changing world, here are NINE QUESTIONS to ponder on and consider. If you can, find a quiet place to do this. Having done so, share what you have learned with your partner, or a close friend. Allow the sharing to inform the strategy and improve it.

Once you have it, put it into practise immediately. It won’t be perfect. It doesn’t need to be. It is an evolving strategy that will grow in importance as you act and learn by your results.

Ok. Here we go:

QUESTION ONE: MATTERS OF IMPORTANCE

Putting the company aside for a moment, and considering your life as a whole and the journey you have walked to be where you are at, in your heart of hearts, what truly matters to you at the end of the day?

QUESTION TWO: GUT INSTINCT

Looking at your existing position in the company and within the industry, does this feel like the best place for you to be, going forward?

QUESTION THREE: RESILIENCE

Given your responses to question one and two, how resilient is your position right now, in terms of your ability to adapt to changing consequences and provide the value that will bring the income that you will need?

QUESTION FOUR: LEARNING

Given your response to question three, and considering both the fast-changing commercial environment and the value you can bring - as objectively as possible – what could you begin learning that would stand you in good stead in the coming time?

QUESTION FIVE: RELATIONSHIP NETWORK

Given that the value of relationships will only increase as strains are put on companies, what is the status of your relationship networks right now and how might you endeavour to strengthen existing ties and build new ones?

QUESTION SIX: TRAVEL LIGHT

If you need to travel light, what are you holding onto that it’s time to, either sell on, drop or at least re-assess? (This can include attachments to objects, people, subscriptions, commitments etc)

QUESTION SEVEN: VALUE

What steps could you take to strengthen your position and value to the company/industry in the next 3 months?

QUESTION EIGHT: UNEXPECTED

If the unexpected should happen, what might it be and how, now that you're aware of it can you pro-actively shift tack and/or have a readymade strategy if it does occur?

QUESTION NINE: COSTS

If you don’t take seriously, the need to strategise your approach, what are the potential consequences and costs of taking that in-action?

Well, there you have it: nine questions to support you in strategising your approach to turning a very real threat into a very real opportunity, and bring that opportunity about through pro-active and practical actions.

Never forgetting the need to be wide-awake in learning from those actions and evolving the strategy as you go.