Leadership Memo 2022-9
Welcome to September! I hope you all got to take a little break in the last 2 months and are now refreshed and recharged to face the rest of 2022.
I’m so excited to be able to finally share with you what I’ve been cooking for the past 2+ months.
The world has changed a lot in the last 2+ years: COVID, social & political unrest, supply chain problems, the Great Resignation, the war in Ukraine, economic downturn, and the impending recession. These global events don’t just happen one after another, they pile on top of each other. I wondered how these events impact the organization and I was curious if there are ways to help serve my clients better. So I conducted a global market research, whereby I talked to executives (VP level and above), middle management and senior individuals who are at similar levels, and industry experts. The research topics are: 1) what do you think today’s business headwinds are and 2) what your biggest challenges are. I’ve talked to folks in the US, Europe, Asia, and Pacific regions. That resulted in a list of top 10 global business challenges:
- Leadership & Management Issues
- Hiring Difficulties & Retention
- Layoffs & Costs
- Hybrid / Remote Work
- Burnout / Well-Being
- Culture
- Measure Performance / Productivity / Feedback
- Incentives / Motivation
- Business Priority Changes
- Uncertainties / Unpredictability
If companies have happy, engaged, and high-performing employees, then executives don’t need to worry about employees quitting. They also don’t need to worry about their employees burning out. Employees are also productive. Wouldn’t you like that?
So, I created a program that addresses 9 out of the top 10 global business challenges (I am sorry I can’t help with layoffs, but I can help with cost discussions and decisions separately). This program helps caring leaders learn how to create an environment that allows their employees to be happy, engaged, and high-performing, so they can react and adapt to this VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous) world.
I’m testing the program in 2 different pilots, one for executive management which starts on September 12 (but you can join any time in September), and another for middle management which starts on October 3. This is the first time I put all the material in one program though the material has been taught and coached separately many times. I need to test it out, that’s why the pilots are heavily discounted. I’m asking for feedback as well.
This program is not open to the public until 2023, but I’m inviting all of you to join the pilots. If you are interested to take the journey from having those challenges in that pie chart to having happy, engaged, and high-performing employees, I’d love to have you. You can learn more about the pilots and register using the links above. Or, if you’d like to discuss it with me first, you can find my availability on my website. Also, do you know of any peers who are experiencing some or all of those challenges or who’d like the outcome that this program creates? I’d love to have them join as well.
Latest happenings:
I’m thrilled to let you know that Sally Elatta would be coming to SFBABAM (San Francisco Bay Area Business Agility Meetup) this month. She’ll show us how to leverage business agility skills to rebuild an entire nation! You don’t want to miss it! RSVP here..
When: August 3rd at 11:30am Pacific, 2:30pm Eastern, 19.30 BST, 20:30 CEST.
“Our Agile Tales” launched another new episode in our current podcast series called “Beyond Budgeting”. We continue our discussion with Bjarte Bogsnes on how beyond budgeting enables business agility. As the 2023 budget planning process is about to start, perhaps we should explore if there are better ways to run our business to be able to adapt and react to this VUCA world instead of following processes that were established in the last century.
You can listen to the podcast on Spotify, Apple, Amazon, Google, Stitcher or you can click here.
