How To Fly Those Half-Built Planes – Leading In Our New World Of Work

Of all the business-speak that’s wormed its way into our collective conscious, “building the plane as we’re flying it” might be the most terrifying. Literally and figuratively, it’s at best difficult and at worst impossible. And yet, I don’t know any organization that hasn’t tried to reinvent itself while simultaneously trying to optimize within its old business model.

These transformation efforts are time-consuming and incredibly taxing. Sadly, most of them are also doomed to fail. Research from two major consulting firms suggests that only about 30 percent of these efforts succeed. That’s pretty bad news for the leaders of the other 70 percent...

If you’re in a leadership role in an organization during this fraught moment, you’re no doubt trying to respond to the challenges of the day. AI is just the latest force reshaping the business landscape. Global competition, the specter of a recession, and an enormous amount of uncertainty are driving us to make change or risk becoming obsolete overnight.

In the face of these many threats, your employees can easily slide into fight, flight, or freeze, rendering them incapable of imaginative problem-solving or envisioning a new future. If you want to unlock their capacity, you’ll need to make some important investments into the enablers of change: trust, a learning orientation, and new capabilities.

Build trust and relationships

It’s a lot easier to try new things when you know that you won’t be blamed for failure. Building a culture of psychological safety and trust has been shown to enable risk-taking, innovation, and creativity – all keys to operating in uncertainty. Start by recognizing and rewarding these behaviors when the stakes are low, and your team will be better able to rise to the occasion when the stakes are high.

Trust is built through relationships. When leaders demonstrate a genuine interest in their employees as people, team members feel an enhanced sense of belonging. It doesn’t require a huge amount of time – which is always in short supply – but giving them your full and undivided attention when you are together.

Learn from experience

If there is no such thing as a new idea, there must not be any new problems either, right? An oversimplification for sure, but the spirit rings true. Whatever your team is going through – a re-org, a big shift in strategy, adoption of new systems or tools – chances are someone else has been through something similar, if not the same. Find out who these people are – at your organization or within your professional circle – and don’t be shy about asking for perspective or advice. Those who have been in the trenches typically welcome the opportunity to share their experiences.

Invest in capability development

No doubt today’s workers are going to need new skills to meet the changing expectations of the modern workplace. This includes hard skills – how to best leverage the latest tech tools – but also soft skills like mindfulness, self-management, and resilience. In addition to hands-on learning, third-party experts can offer an outside perspective and a safe outlet for sharing feelings of hesitancy or fear. Likewise, peer learning cohorts and group coaching create channels for communal problem-solving and best-practice sharing.

It’s easy to cut development programs in uncertain times, but it’s a short-sighted move. You need to equip your team to succeed at building today’s new plane, and the next, and the next. The need for reinvention is only going to accelerate from here. Make sure you’ve enabled your workforce to withstand the turbulence.