Maybe it’s time for you to launch your lifeboat

Imagine that you are sailing on a gigantic ocean liner. The structure of the ship is solid and robust, but you are sailing in an unknown sea, and so are the obstacles you may encounter. What if an iceberg appears with only the tip of which you can see? It has already happened to many others. Will the huge ocean liner be able to maneuver in time to avoid collision? It is possibly a structure that is too slow and clumsy, and it will not be able to do so.

Maybe it’s time for you to launch several explorer boats into the water. Unlike the ocean liner, these are small and agile. I’m sure some of them will be able to find the fastest way to the best destinations. Over time, those small boats – true initiatives of personal innovation – will become the lifelines of your professional future.

This image can sum up the importance of lifeboats in uncertain times.

The need to innovate

One of the main characteristics that define this new era is the increasing speed at which changes are taking place. Everything is constantly changing around us: business models, knowledge schemes, our customers and suppliers, our collaborators, and even our own children. This situation of change and uncertainty directly affects leaders and organizations. The need to innovate is becoming increasingly evident. As new social structures break down functional barriers in organizations, and traditional boundaries become liquid, our contribution becomes more and more complex. We often find ourselves working with people who belong to another organization, who perform another function, who are customers or who are suppliers. In short, they are different people with whom we do not necessarily share common goals or values. Sometimes – especially in multinational organizations – we work and communicate virtually with people we have never seen. They are dispersed, located in very different places, and lead different ways of life than we do. The result is that relationships are becoming more and more complex, and more difficult to manage. Undoubtedly, things were simpler when we could see people face to face and talk to them looking into their eyes. But that is no longer the case. And the fact is that many companies that once dominated the market are now on the verge of disappearing because they have not been able to adapt to the new demands of this new paradigm. On a personal level, something similar happens to us: no one wants to end up becoming an outdated and obsolete leader, or in other words, becoming a brake on their organization, a kind of old piece of furniture that no longer has anything to contribute and is dedicated to hindering the initiatives of others.

Combining innovation with daily contribution

The problem is that innovating is not so simple. Not only must we be willing to modify the mindsets that have allowed us to get to where we are now. We must also find a method that allows us to adapt to changes without altering our daily contribution to the organization. In other words, we cannot devote all our time to change and innovation, because we have to keep working to keep the organization functioning. The same is true on a higher scale: the company must innovate, but it cannot focus all its time and effort on innovation, because doing so would mean abandoning the main sources of income.

Is there a method to combine innovation and day-to-day contribution? My professional experience has shown me that yes: Maybe it’s time for you to launch your lifeboat, to launch small personal innovation initiatives that allow you to transform, little by little, the structures and processes that now govern your daily life and that of your organization. In short, it is about creating the environment and making it possible for something extraordinary to happen around you; something that opens the doors to new possibilities that are there, but that you will hardly be able to see if you do not change your daily routine and leave your Comfort Zone. These practical tips can help you achieve this:

Get out of your comfort zone

Surely you think that everything is going smoothly, and that you have a bright future. That is very good, but you must bear in mind that it is very difficult to change when you are comfortably installed in your comfort zone, oblivious to everything that is happening “on the outside”, simply treating the symptoms without worrying about the causes, and what is worse, wasting your true potential. The truth is that it is very difficult to anticipate these changes if you are convinced that management is nothing more than a tool to manage the current state of things, the Status Quo. Even if you have only received congratulations for your management, you should leave that comfort zone to ask yourself the questions that will define the success or failure of our organizations: what will the leadership of the future be like?, how can we move towards new models of collective intelligence management in the Age of Collaboration?, what will value creation models through collective intelligence be like?, what are the new forms of relationship with customers and suppliers?, how to manage the new generations of digital native professionals?, what new skills do I have to develop to face the new challenges? All these questions have one thing in common: you will not be able to find the answer if you do not first leave your Comfort Zone. This is because these are complex challenges, which are beyond the limits of our experience. In other words, they are challenges for which we do not yet know the answers. The only way to find those answers is collectively, interacting with the new social reality.

In the environment of organizations – as in nature – there are no eternal winners, only species and organizations that either react and adapt to the new realities of the market, or become extinct. On a personal level, the same thing happens: the best professionals do not lose their jobs because they become lazy or stupid; they usually lose it because every day they do better what they know how to do, but what they know how to do well is no longer relevant to customers.

Dare to face the new reality

In times of change and uncertainty, it is always better to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission. So jump into the sand. Test your ideas in real conditions, with real customers and in real markets. Don’t waste time simulating reality; Create it and experiment with it. Turn your project into reality. Listen to what your customers and collaborators have to say and improve day by day. The most important thing is to “do”. Enter the dynamic of “doing” to escape the “paralysis of analysis”. Launch something that really works as fast as you can. It’s the best way to gain momentum. Leave “risk management” to the banks. There is no greater risk today than standing still watching your long-time customers abandon you, your margins shrink and the best talent leaves the company. Of course, it’s not easy to leave the “bargain” that has worked for us for so long… But now you know that past success does not guarantee future success. The Internet has made markets more transparent. Now, before you buy anything, you can compare prices and decide on the best place to buy what you want. Similarly, mass collaboration makes organizations more transparent. That means that very soon you will know the value that each one brings to the organization, and how each person contributes to the common goals. That is why we say that it is no longer worth hiding: very soon you will be found. So dare to leave your “comfort zone”. It is in your hands to do something that makes a difference in front of others.

It’s about moving from the “yes, but…” group to the “why not…” group. You don’t need anyone else’s authorization or permission; you just need to step up and start understanding changes as an opportunity to do new things.

Start with your personal agenda

The starting point must necessarily be an exercise in humility: if everything has changed around us, we must necessarily change too. We must explore the new reality to discover the enormous possibilities of the Age of Collaboration. If you do not have a personal agenda, it is highly likely that you are part of someone else’s agenda. Therefore, it is about establishing a personal action plan to transform yourself and to introduce some new practice in your personal life and in your day-to-day life as a manager. Remember that “if you always do what you have always done, you will always achieve what you have always achieved”. It is not about discarding or devaluing all your previous experience, or what you have been doing until now. It is about exploring the new reality and accepting that you have to discard part of what you are doing and develop the new skills necessary to solve the new challenges.

You can start with the simple 80/20 rule. That is, making sure that in your personal agenda you dedicate 80% of your time to the usual things, and the remaining 20% to managing your future. Don’t get discouraged if it costs a little at first. It’s normal. The brain naturally takes you back to the usual routine, and tends to avoid the uncertainty of the unknown. The important thing is that you frequently review your schedule and check that you really dedicate a part of your time to important things for your future, and not to the usual trivialities.

Question the current state of affairs

Create a critical culture that questions the status quo and addresses organizational challenges in an unusual way. Explore new avenues and avoid easy answers to the problem. New challenges involve learning new ways of doing things and questioning long-held beliefs. Build a low-risk experimentation capacity that allows you to launch new management innovation initiatives with a limited number of people and resources, so that you can validate the level of commitment to potential changes. That is, give new ideas a chance without crippling the organization’s ability to achieve its results on a day-to-day basis. Spend some of your time exploring new realities and preparing for the future, while still attending to your current responsibilities.

Learn the new language of collaboration

Learn the new language of collaboration with the same zeal with which you learned English in your day to ensure a future in any multinational. Overcome stage fright and actively participate in the blogs and social networks most relevant to your profession or sector. Interact with the new reality. You will discover that it does not bite, and that it is not dangerous either. The central element in the Age of Collaboration is not to access information, but to access conversations and actively participate in them. It is these new conversations that will allow us to develop new skills as leaders; those that will allow us to know the needs of our customers and find the new talent that our organizations require. By participating, you will ensure that your ability to synthesize is strengthened against your ability to analyze, and you will learn to detect general patterns over specific answers. When you think the time has come, publish a personal blog and create your personal brand to share your knowledge and strengthen your network of contacts. In this new world of open, transparent and global communications, there is little room for secrets. There is no place to hide: we will all end up being visible.

Moving towards leadership 2.0

In the face of the challenges of the Age of Collaboration, we find it difficult to recognize that we have reached the limit of our experience. As Nassim Taleb tells us, in the face of the Black Swans, what we do not know is more important than what we know. The image of the charismatic leader who knows everything has been overcome. In the new paradigm, the search for the right direction is a task in which the entire organization must participate. The new leader will be very different from the one we know. Therefore, as I have explained before, the starting point must necessarily be an exercise in humility: we simply no longer have the answers, nor can we find them by looking in the rearview mirror of our experience. Our work as leaders must necessarily be different. It is not about having the concrete answers to the complex challenges we face. It is about being able to explore new realities, identify the fundamental questions that our organization must ask in the face of new challenges, and collaboratively mobilize all the people in the organization to assume the collective responsibility for facing the new social reality. The Age of Collaboration makes possible new organizations that are more agile, participatory, open, transparent and truly people-centered. When leadership and innovation is a shared work for all, the opportunities are endless.