The writing is on the wall. Unless you take your business global in the next 10 years it’s more than likely going to be dead (“Four Forces Are Upending Everything You Thought You Knew,” James Manyika, Director, McKinsey Global Institute (MGI); Director, McKinsey & Company, July 2015; “What Will Business Look Like in 2020?” EY, 2015; “Forces for Change, Global Mega-Trends” (2015), Business in the Community, The Prince’s Responsible Business Network). I’m not talking about the big corporate businesses here. They’ve known about the need to think and act globally for a generation. No, this is about everyday small and medium enterprises (SMEs), the sort of businesses that employ most people. How can I be so confident with this assertion? Global mega trends are converging to make this happen. Here are just four of the biggest:
- Industrialization and urbanization in emerging economies
- Disruptive technologies
- An aging world
- Greater global interconnections
These mega trends will present businesses with huge opportunities and threats at the same time. What can businesses do about them?
Leaders Develop Colleagues to Become Innovators and Entrepreneurs
One of the most effective actions a business can take is to develop leaders to free employees to take a business global. The people who lead businesses at all levels need to make a major mind shift if they are to succeed in 2020 and beyond. Leaders need to develop employees to become innovators and entrepreneurs so the business can grasp the opportunities global mega trends are bringing. Leaders need to stop controlling and managing and start motivating and enabling people. The unsustainable businesses will be the ones where employees do no more than what they’re told at work and only develop their talents outside work.
Leaders in 2020 will need to:
- Discover opportunities and how to develop and leverage business strengths
- Inspire colleagues to make their bit of the world a better place
- Influence, collaborate, and partner to get things done
What do diversity and neuroscience have to do with developing innovators and entrepreneurs?
To answer this question, we need to understand something about how innovation happens. In simple terms, innovation requires:
- Gathering large amounts of information
- Rigorously evaluating it
- Looking for new connections and making new meaning
What do we know about how the human brain gains insights that also might be useful here? Try this quick test to generate an answer: Take the words pine, crab, and sauce. What is the connecting word that makes sense with each of them? The answer is at the end of this article**.
Did you logically work it out, i.e., by trying a series of different words before and after pine, crab, and sauce? Or did it come to you unexpectedly in a flash of insight? Here’s what we know about how the human brain gains insight (Beeman and Kounios 2007:
- The “Aha!” moment occurs when a solution to a problem is computed unconsciously and later emerges into awareness suddenly.
- It involves a conceptual reorganization of the elements of a problem that results in a new, non-obvious interpretation and an innovation.
- It can be provoked by new information such as the perspective of a team colleague in discussion.
- Different perspectives naturally come from people with different upbringing, education, experience, values etc.
What’s the point here? It’s this: If you want to generate insights on how to grasp the opportunities the global mega trends are bringing, you need diverse perspectives. When you get people around a (virtual) table to share those diverse perspectives, you potentially:
- Increase the chance of useful information being attended to
- Increase the generation of useful insights
- Increase the quality of discussion and evaluation of innovative ideas
In 2020 and beyond, there will be a premium on leaders who have the positive mindsets and skills to facilitate discussion that produces innovation and who motivate employees to take power, and act on their insights in the best, future interests of the business.
We invite you to collaborate with JCA to innovate your leadership development, develop your leaders and their colleagues, and grasp the opportunities the global mega trends are bringing your business.
**Answer: apple
Jonathan Chalstrey is owner of Jonathan Chalstrey Associates (JCA) Consultancy and senior associate at MaST International Learning and Development Consultancy. He has 12 years of experience as a successful leadership and team development consultant within UK and global development sectors. An experienced designer of learning interventions and their application back at work, Chalstrey is also a facilitator, coach, and trainer. Chalstrey is the author of the book, “Think Better, Lead Better: Transforming Your Leadership Through Understanding Your Brain” (2015).
