Biz of You Spotlight: Fluidity for Business - Building the Business of You

Podcast

May 25

Written By Strategic Momentum

Find Us Wherever You Listen To Podcasts

In this episode, Connie Now, explains how companies can approach each of the five components in Building the Business of You to help employees reach their potential, as well as how the fluid system can help organizations stay ahead in a rapidly evolving business landscape. Because fluidity isn’t just about the future of careers, it's about the future of work.

Transcript

Connie: So why is this system important for businesses to understand? Well it's really important for the leaders of these businesses to understand because companies at the end of the day are made up of people and a fluid company can't adapt and pivot if you don't understand people at their core and their needs and what they want.

So what's important to understand is a fluid company can adapt and thrive in an uncertain and ever-changing world. A fluid company has the ability to quickly pivot and capitalize on opportunities better than competitors. A fluid company can harness the expansive skillsets and passions of their employees to catapult them to the next level.

So by helping your employees build their own compasses, in addition to establishing that strategic plan for your organization, you'll be able to align needs, interests, passions, and purpose so that you can unleash everyone's potential. So in terms of tips, spend the time to understand those people on your team, know how to leverage them to their fullest capacity.

It's really about alignment at the end of the day and understanding what their desires and interests are. So you can ensure they fit in the best place possible. When you and your team and those that you work with, understand that compass that you're setting for all involved you're going to be more likely to be able to accomplish those goals you've set out. Because you're now creating clarity for everyone.

The other thing that's really important to know is that you have to keep in mind that you are not the sole focus of your business. You need to take a wide angle view and understand the value of everybody that works for you. So embrace their personal and professional dreams the same way you would do your own.

If you make yourself the only important person in the organization, your best workers are going to leave. And leadership really is about being the coach and not necessarily the star player. And the system is a strategic planning system, no different than where you need to do a strategic plan for your own organization.

It's really that simple, it's analysis, planning and execution. So you apply the same components to your company as you would yourself. And so you need to do this for your team. You have to do this for your organization and when you can align them all together, you'll be in a better position to create that traction.

So when we think about how this system applies to an organization, let's break it up into the five components. In spotting the trends you have to look at what the market is doing, what your industry is doing, what your competitors are doing, to help you start to formulate the strategy for your company.

It's no different than what you have to do internally. You need to spot the trends on what's happening with your employees, with your management, with your peers. Understand what could be operating well, what may not be operating well. How do you leverage people on your team to help you understand what's happening in an organization, to help you understand how to function effectively, internally, they're all data points.

What you're doing is gathering information so that you can get insights on what to do next within your company. Based on that information, then you're going to create a plan. One plan will guide your company on a macro level, but you have to get it done with people. So once you understand those different dynamics of what's happening inside your organization, maybe there are certain dynamics that are happening that will make it harder for you to move things forward at the pace that you want to.

Or maybe you realize that there are certain people that you have to build a relationship to help you get done what you need to get done, based on the information you identified in spotting the trends.

All of this information gathering will help you map out that plan. Once you map out the plan, inevitably, you're probably going to be facing some fear in some form or fashion because these plans will reflect something new that your team, or you may not have done.

So no different than preparing for change at an individual level, you now need to prepare for change on an organizational level, which again is composed of individuals. Maybe there are people on your team that have never done a project like you're going to be doing. And you could sense that there's some nervousness. Help them get through it, help guide them, help them see the bigger picture.

Maybe they're catastrophizing the situation as well. But when we get to the fourth component, you're always going to need people to help you. So networking within your organization is very important. You have to build alliances, you need to build a support system to help you get done what you need to get done.

Of course, you should also be networking externally as well, because it's not just the people inside your company that can help you gain that traction, but you may need to leverage external vendors to be able to implement the products that you have. And then lastly, you're always building skills. Your company is always building new capabilities to be able to get to the next level they want to get to. Building those capabilities and skill sets is necessary for your company to be able to implement its strategic plan.

So in essence, you're going to have to be building those hard and soft skills as well. And you're gonna have to train your team to do that.

To be the most effective leader, these five components are important for you to master. At the end of the day, you have to create the clarity to coalesce what your organization needs, but also be able to leverage and harness the power of the people that work within it.

So the more that you can understand how to align the compasses of your individual employees, as well as map it to the plan of your company, you're then going to create that strategic momentum that will help move you forward, because no matter what, you're always going to be needing to spot the trends. It's a data gathering exercise, but really more importantly, it's the insights you get from it to determine the ‘So What, Now What?’ to establish that initial plan. But you have to always get over your own fear and the fear of those potentially within your team or with others to push past those barriers that can commonly get you stuck. And remember that you have to build relationships with people. It's all about networking.

And then lastly, and again, as you map that all out, you're going to be building those necessary capabilities, those skills to then get you where you want to go.