Back to basics is the mantra I keep hearing from senior leaders and business owners as they prepare for an indeterminate period of turbulence and uncertainty. However, it is not possible for us to return to the basics as the basics we know no longer exist. Our reliance on measurement and technology as a prediction for the future has shown to be false and often misleading as companies keep re-adjusting their revenue and profit projections, downwards in nearly all instances, and job layoffs start to take hold. The craziness is compounded when world trade collapses by 45% in a quarter; investors in super funds see their savings reduced by 35% and investors rush to invest in gold as it climbs beyond US$1000 an ounce as other commodities crash. Against these facts how can we make economic sense? The only certainty seems to be the media who keep perpetuating the doom and gloom.
In January 31, 2009 the leading article in the Sydney Morning Herald Weekend Business Section uses a pictorial metaphor of several old fashion galleons armed to the teeth carrying flags from America, UK and Australia rushing rapidly toward a giant waterfall created by melting icebergs with the caption "Drop the anchor, we're going over the edge!!"
Here we stand in a moment in time where everything we have taken for granted economically; everything we considered secure and certain about our assets and our ability to earn and grow those assets seems to be in question. Our reality is now contained in a miasma of ambiguity, paradox and uncertainty waiting for signals suggesting the economic order has either completely imploded or landed safely.
Just this weekend at the top end of town, the World Economic Forum 2009, Niall Ferguson, an economic historian from Harvard, named this coming period the Great Repression comparing the global situation to what happened recently in the Argentinean economy.
It is against this backdrop of systemic economic breakdown, the Creative Leadership Forum has recorded its best monthly revenue on record and goes into 2009 with an unprecedented number of bookings for leadership programmes, consultancies and for me, keynote speaking engagements.
It is not by chance this has occurred.
Senior leaders and managers know we are in a crisis of extraordinary proportions and as a result are keen for deep and meaningful dialogues devoid of posturing, propaganda and proselytizing. This week the World Economic Forum Davos 2009 has shown the importance and power of open dialogue at the highest levels. Leaders seem to be seeking different opinions, listening with new intent, not eager to make decisions necessarily; more to reflect, to gather their own thoughts; to try and understand what it is that is emerging globally and nationally. This is a scary uncomfortable place to be in especially for leaders in organisations who have relied on what they considered once reliable measurement and information systems.
What a time like this calls for is authentic dialogues devoid of any hint of rhetoric or status as leaders seek signs of new emerging conditions and directions. Open-heartedness, open-mindedness and an open will to live with the current darkness of uncertainty and to make hard decisions requires extraordinary personal powers of balance, perseverance, patience and resilience.
These are the philosophies and practices that great creative leaders such as Nelson Mandela have embodied - the ability to apply those values and concepts in times of darkness for the benefit of their constituents and stakeholders..
Are our business or organisational leaders equipped to embody those practices as we move forward in these times?
Monday, August 31, 2009 at 12:17PM