Becoming all-consumed and completely focused on the inside operations of your organization is a recipe for decline and failure. Jack Welch famously said, “If change is happening on the outside faster than the inside the end is in sight.”
An organizational insight from biology: As organisms grow in size their volume goes up by the cube yet their surface area increases only by the square. A single cell bacterium is completely in touch with the external environment. A single cell in the heart of a blue whale is yards from the ocean.
You need to proactively work to be aware of what’s going on outside your organization. Smart C-suite leaders spend considerable time and effort to connect with customers, industry peers, and a diverse world.
Specific suggestions to be informed and thoughtful:
- Consistently read newspapers of record and journals for your industry
- Get news alerts for your industry, competitors, key customers, and technologies
- Talk with customers who pay for your products and services (even if you’re not in sales)
- Share what you’re reading and learning with your direct reports and peers
- Participate in conferences and society groups relevant to your role or your industry
- Cultivate a network of external people who can give you ground-truth insights about trends and changes
- Follow influencers in your industry on LinkedIn
This takes energy and time. Worth it.
One more suggestion: Find ways to follow a seemingly independent industry which shares some similarities to yours. There are many lessons to be learned which will help you, too. For example, I found that the Pharma world was very similar to the Ag Biotech space. We could have deep conversations about our same struggles because we weren’t competitors.
