What is the biggest challenge facing business today?

Let’s be clear up front; when you ask about the ‘biggest challenge’, transitory problems like tight credit or weak demand don’t top the list.  Although they are immensely relevant and can be tough to work through, they are an ongoing reality of business cycles.  As with other challenges, like the cost of labor or rising transportation charges, they are part of the landscape – they are not going to go away and will always have to be addressed as part of an ongoing commitment to staying in business.

No, the biggest challenge facing leaders and the enterprises they lead is delivering in three vital functions –

• identifying the right opportunity out of all the options;
• developing an informed, actionable plan to harvest the opportunity;
• and focusing people resources to work the plan, while staying both steadfast and adaptable

Each of these functions is a challenge in itself, and each requires a different set of skills and leadership aptitudes.

What is Forging Results all about?

The goal of the BusinessSmith Forging Results development process is to help you and your executive team lead your enterprise to deliver results.

First, we look at problems, challenges, trends and threats.  Matching those with strengths, skills, aptitudes and interests leads to understanding of what the right opportunity is.  With the opportunity understood, crafting the plan begins. Finally, we arrive at the execution of the plan, with all the change management, resource allocation and training that involves.

At each of these steps we can expect misunderstanding, reluctance, fear, even downright resistance and sabotage.  Crafting accord and buy-in amongst stakeholders often becomes THE real issue, so the Forging Results process contains powerful relationship tools to build trust and work through those obstacles, and with each challenge overcome we are building the ‘muscle’ needed to face the next challenge.

How is BusinessSmith different?

I like that question!  It’s simple, while I maintain an action orientation; I don’t rush a client to my solution.

Let me put it this way – a good coach walks into a new locker room with a little black book full of winning plays already in his or her back pocket, but also knowing that every situation is different.  Each team has different strengths and weaknesses; history, stories, traditions and objectives.

And it is also very often the case that the problem I’m called in to address isn’t the real problem needing to be solved.

So there is a lot to be said for listening, asking questions, listening, doing ‘gemba’ walks to go-and-see, listening.  Did I mention listening?

Only after we are agreed on the problem can we identify a solution that’s going to last over time.  Just as we only create a game plan after achieving a clear understanding of where we need to go.  The game plan is the tool that empowers us to get out there and play, but it is only one step in the process of winning.

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