Are You Really Up to Speed?
You need to make sure
that your company is moving at the pace of change. That means never being
comfortable with the current rate of change--because it keeps getting faster.
We're on the cusp of some radical changes in how and where we'll
be working-- driven largely by the introduction of new players and suppliers,
new business models, new automation technologies and new connectivity tools.
Together, they are changing the face, the composition, the size and the future
of our workforces.
How, and how rapidly, these new forces will evolve in your
own companies isn't clear, but it is inevitable. And don't expect slow and
incremental change- that's no longer the way the world works. The sooner you
start thinking about them and planning for them, the more prepared you're going
to be and the more likely you are to be surfing the waves rather than drowning
in the floods.
Today, we're all connected by powerful and fully-portable
devices that are increasingly intelligent and sentient. We're prepared and
we're expected to work anywhere and everywhere-- on call, like it or not,
24/7/365-- and because these are the requirements of our present work world, we
readily extrapolate and extend them well beyond our own day-to-day lives into
the broader workplace as well. We're all in a hurry these days and time is the
scarcest resource of all.
And in fact, once we've experienced these hyper-speed services
either as providers or recipients, once we're an active part and a participant
in the "right now" economy, we soon mentally up our own expectations
and anticipate exactly the same levels of speed and service throughout the rest
of our lives. Why would anyone wait for anything?
If Walgreens can give me a walk-in, one-minute flu shot, why
would I wait three weeks to make a pain-in-the-ass appointment with my regular
doctor's nurse to get the exact same shot and pay a lot more for the
"privilege." And, oh by the way, while I'm at Walgreens, I can drop off
my FedEx packages as well since every Walgreens is now a FedEx hub.
No business or industry is going
to escape these kinds of shifts and the smart money is on the people thinking
today about what they will need to do differently tomorrow to thrive in the new
mobile and digital economy. The question that you need to be asking yourselves
is not simply how do I use some of these new-fangled technologies to do my
business better-- how will I use these new tools to do things for my clients
and customers that I never imagined that I could do before. For example,
a Chicago startup called LISA has an
app that provides easy tenant access to all kinds of onsite personal
services such as hair and nail care. It's like an automated concierge service
for office buildings and it's just one good example of what's coming down the
line.
These ever-faster changes will have significant and disruptive
impacts on the workplace and on the demands that tenants will be making on their
landlords. It's not going to be enough to say that you are fairly responsive
and pretty quick-- you need to have a plan that is focused not on how fast you
are today, but on how fast your business is getting faster and becoming more
adept and, most importantly, how capable you are of anticipating and exceeding
the needs and requirements of your customers. You need to learn to skate to
where the puck is headed, not chase it down the ice.
The expectations of all customers are perpetually progressive
and the movement is always up and to the right. What was great yesterday-- even
things that were miracles of speed and service-- are just "so whats"
today. It's increasingly a "what have you done for me lately" world
and if you're not meeting the demands, you can be sure that there are plenty of
others ready to fill your shoes. The idea of parity, that "we're no worse
than the next guy" is being blown up by new entrants with new business
models that aren't held to the same old standards and aren't doing business in
the same old way. Traditions these days are really just excuses offered by
people who don't want to change.
Now I understand that almost no one likes change, but it's
really not change that's the problem. Changes when they come take place in an
instant. It's overcoming the resistance to change, the reluctance to leave
behind the old ways and abandon the things that have worked "pretty
well" for you in the past, that keeps us from moving forward.
The hard news is that what worked for us in the past simply
won't cut it in the future. Things aren't going to be a little bit
different because the shifts in the ways we do business will make a lot of the
old methods and programs essentially meaningless. And, if you don't do it
to yourselves, someone else will promptly come right along to do it to you. So,
now's the time to get started.
Customers and clients are increasingly fickle folks and their
definition of loyalty is also new. Today, loyalty doesn't mean much more than I
haven't seen anything better-- YET. I realize that that's not encouraging, but
that's life in the fast lane. No one really owns the customers or clients any
more...you can own the moment and the experience, but you have to deliver the
goods each and every time.