You would have to have been locked in a skiing lodge or hidden away on a very exotic Caribbean island for the last few months not to be aware of the slew of high street mainstays (Comet, HMV, Jessops, Blockbuster etc) that have fallen into administration either side of Xmas.
At the risk of stating the obvious and sounding very trite, these businesses – despite their very recognisable brands – have not adapted quickly enough, or thoroughly enough to the changing economic and technological climate. Sadly 1,000s of very real people have consequently been made redundant and many members of the public and small suppliers will be out of pocket and feel aggrieved. That said, this is not a new or unique situation. Enough “big brand names” go to the wall on a fairly regular basis for us all to be aware of the fact that brands – even big ones – go under when they fail to adapt.
The good news is that I am not going to spend the rest of this blog nostalgically bemoaning the loss of the recognisable UK high street brands associated with warm fuzzy memories, nor am I going to forensically pick apart the economic whys and wherefores of the passing of these once strong businesses – both of these angles have been extensively covered already. Instead what I want to do is a bit of thinking about how to avoid going into receivership and in particular make an appeal to all CXOs to take the time to find and listen to a corporate prophet.
The corporate prophet? Yes the corporate prophet. Corporate Prophet – an individual with genuine and vital insight(s) relating to the future health of the corporation – cf. Freeman 2013
Throughout historic literature the role of the prophet / shaman / guru / oracle etc has always been to deliver difficult and challenging messages to the leaders of a faulty society. The wise leaders are the ones able to see beyond their own position, sense the wisdom in the prophet’s message and call their society to action. Sadly all too often the historical prophets are ignored and in many cases are ridiculed and/or tortured and killed by leaders keen to maintain the status quo. Inevitably by ignoring the prophet’s warnings the leader and the society usually suffer a suitably painful demise. Now I’m not saying that the CXOs of HMV et al deliberately ignored or disregarded the prophets sent their way but a raft of personal experience, supplemented by a cruise through the biographies of famous corporate leaders, reveals how the CXOs of the recent corporate casualties could easily have missed out on some timely wisdom from a corporate prophet. Here’s why:
1) Corporate prophets are not easy to come by in the Boardroom
2) They are painful/no fun to be around and
3) Corporate prophets don’t often come with a label and can be disguised in a range of shapes and forms.
So if you are a CXO with a desire to be a wise corporate leader my advice, based on the points made above is simple a) Take time on a regular basis to be with and talk with people who are not your direct reports, b) Work on asking people open questions and be prepared to listen to their answers – you won’t hear anything useful if you act defensively and/or aggressively to what others say. C) Look out for your corporate prophets in some unusual places. The corporate prophet may be the employee who’s asking the difficult questions, they may be the former customer who took the time to complain or they may even be from one of those “fluffy” futurist consultancies.
So hands up all those CXOs who are humble/mad enough to seek out people who are angry at them/disagree with them/won’t pander to their ego. If you’ve still got your hand up and are still reading – well done – hopefully you will find the insights you deserve. When you look at the challenges associated with tuning into a corporate prophet it’s perhaps not surprising that CXOs often miss the difficult messages. Here’s hoping you don’t miss this one.
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