Are you the type of leader who’s dealing well in these trying economic times?

• Who confronts reality?
• Who figures out what needs to be done?
• Who communicates with confidence?
• Who finds opportunities in chaos, despite uncertainty, inevitable change and unpredictable sales?

If you’re like most, you’ve never before experienced a downturn like this. Reports about the end of the recession mean little if your company continues to fight cash-flow problems.

You cannot allow yourself to be afraid. Others look to you for strength and guidance. You must give the best you have and move quickly, even when faced with incomplete information.

Leading in uncertain times is not for the faint of heart. Some management teams navigate these challenging times well, while others fail miserably. It’s not just the CEO and CFO who are responsible; everyone has an important role to play. Indeed, those who lead well during the recession will emerge as shining stars for tomorrow’s top teams.

In his new book, Leadership in the Era of Economic Uncertainty, bestselling author Ram Charan identifies the key rules to follow if you want to get the right things done in difficult times. This article discusses Charan’s best advice.

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This is a brief synopsis of a 2000 & 1000-word article suitable for consultants’ newsletters for executives and leaders in organizations. It is available for purchase with full reprint rights, which means you may put your name on it and use it in your newsletters, blogs or other marketing materials. You may also modify it and add your personal experiences and perspectives.

The complete 2,000 word article includes these important concepts:

• The Call for Leadership
• Uncertain Data
• Shrinking Business
• Management Intensity
• Ground-Level Intelligence
• Controlling in Real Time
• Build Confidence
• Authenticity Is Critical
• What You Can Do
• Six Essential Leadership Traits for Hard Times
• A note from Ram Charan

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“It’s an environment the likes of which managers have never seen—a Great Disruption in which the old rules for success become recipes for failure, and ‘doing more with less’ will not be nearly enough to survive.”—Scott D. Anthony, The Silver Lining: An Innovation Playbook for Uncertain Times, Harvard Business Press, 2009

The inevitable constraints this tough economy imposes on companies provide fertile ground for innovation because necessity truly is the mother of invention. Companies that learn to innovate more quickly, cheaply and with less risk will emerge from the downturn stronger than ever.

To succeed, smart executives will need to adopt a different mindset and effective frameworks to determine what to start doing, stop doing and do differently. Consultant and author Scott D. Anthony, who earned his MBA at Harvard Business School, prescribes a disruptive-innovation mindset. His book is well-worth the read for historical perspectives and inspiration.

Over the last decade, technological improvements have made starting and scaling businesses easier than ever. Brazil, Russia, China, India and other emerging markets prove U.S. leaders have more competitors at home and abroad. Industries are frantically converging and colliding.

These changes make it more difficult for great companies to maintain success—a problem that has caused leaders to lose sleep for some time (even before the 2008 financial market collapse).

Tough business environments force companies to take a hard look at innovation. While output may shrink and unemployment is sure to rise, companies that master these challenges have a chance to thrive. Those that don’t are sure to struggle.

A Historical Perspective

While no one can predict with certainty how the global economic crisis will play out, many companies face serious challenges:

• Should they cut costs and streamline innovation projects until business picks up?
• Should they play it safe until the current storm passes?

If history is a guide, the answer is a definitive “no.” We can restore hope and gain a better perspective by taking a step back and considering how past downturns were resolved.

Many successful companies have been launched during recessions. Grim economic times can highlight previously hidden problems or cause old problems to intensify. When a deep-seated customer problem emerges, search for novel ways to address it.

A number of game-changing products, services and business-model innovations were developed or launched in daunting economic climates.

Thirteen of the 25 companies on the Dow Jones Industrial Average, as of December 2008, were formed during an economic downturn, including 3M, General Electric, Microsoft and Walt Disney.

Disruptive Innovations

Instead of trying to best their competitors, disruptors change the game. They typically transform existing markets or create new ones by focusing on convenience, simplicity, accessibility or affordability.
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• Disruptive Innovations
• Bad Times, Good Times
• The Transformation Imperative
• Disruptive Guidelines
• The Executive Challenge

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As opportunities for global expansion increase, so does the trend toward more
diversity in the workplace. Successful companies are recruiting professionals
with different backgrounds, cultures, styles and motivations. Yet this great
resource presents increased possibilities for misunderstanding and cultural
blunders.

It is obvious that organizations will need to expand the capacity for people to
handle the challenges of working with other cultures if they are to participate
successfully. Those companies that continue to struggle with domestic diversity
will find themselves even more challenged.

People must move beyond simply accepting cultural identities and differences to
a place where they can be leveraged for competitive advantage, superior
performance and creative growth. There is tremendous creative energy and
innovation that can be harnessed when people from different perspectives work
successfully together.

Global business is challenging in large part because cultural habits and
attitudes blind people to other ways of doing things and make them unwilling or
unable to change.

The full 2,000-word article includes the following concepts:

Six dimensions to consider when doing business with a foreign culture
Different Ways of Doing Business
One Size Does Not Fit All
Leveraging Cultural Diversity
A List of Resources

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Is your organization looking forward, or is it focused on the problems of the
present and immediate short-term competition?

Will your organization create new rules of competition in the future? Is it
imagining new ways of doing business, building new capabilities, and setting new
standards of customer satisfaction? Is it alert to possible risks from
unconventional rivals, new business models, changing demographics, and global
opportunities and uncertainties?

It is no longer a question of being able to operate lean and mean. Trimming jobs
and cutting costs, while important tasks, will not put you and your company into
a front running position for industry leadership of the future.

Looking at the Wrong Things

According to Hamel and Prahalad, “Any company that succeeds at restructuring and
reengineering, but fails to create the markets of the future, will find itself
on a treadmill, trying to keep one step ahead of the steadily declining margins
and profits of yesterday’s business.”

Keys to Creating Success for the Future

Value-building companies that find creative ways to address broad social
concerns and who cooperate with interest groups may be better positioned for
future success than those with a single-minded pursuit of the bottom line.

Focusing time and energy to creatively evaluate potential risks and
opportunities is the key to creating and maintaining a successful future for
your organization.

This is a synopsis of the full 2,000-word article which contains the following
concepts:

Why Leaders Don’t Look Ahead
Looking at the Wrong Things
Risks and Opportunities in an Uncertain World
Five Drivers of Change
Keys to Creating Success for the Future
Futurist Thinking

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Most CEOs hope a stronger focus on customers will protect them from eroding profit margins and commoditization. But getting closer to customers is not a matter of installing better CRM systems or simply measuring satisfaction levels.

Companies can take advantage of new, increasingly efficient ways to understand and respond to customer needs and preferences. We now have the ability to connect with buyers in more meaningful ways — connections that can benefit the bottom line by reducing costs and increasing revenues.

Close examination reveals that relationships between companies and consumers are suffering. U.S. satisfaction rates are at an all-time low. Complaints, boycotts and growing unhappiness with big corporations are strong indicators that most CRM isn’t working.

Ironically, the very steps marketers are taking to build relationships with
customers are often responsible for destroying these connections. Companies may delight in learning more about their customers and providing services to please them, but customers are fed up. They’re tired of irrelevant survey questions, overwhelming product choices, features they’ll never use in phone plans and cars, and rebate-driven buyer reward programs.

Perhaps we’re overlooking the fundamental elements of a good customer
relationship program. With the means to connect with customers easily, maybe we’re rushing to cash in on the potential rewards, while forgetting the
essentials of all relationships: intimacy and trust.

Customer relationship marketing is powerful in theory, but troubled in practice. We need to take time to figure out how and why we are undermining our own best efforts. Let’s start by taking a look at what’s wrong with most relationship marketing approaches.

The full 2000-word article discusses the following concepts:

What’s Missing
What’s Wrong
Regaining Customer Trust
The Quest for Customer Focus
Standardization Versus Localization
The New Frontier: Mining the Internet
Overpromise, Overdeliver
The New Social Marketing: Buzz and Word of Mouth

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