Challenging the Status Quo

by Pamela Wasley

The status quo is best described as a mindset that says, "Something must work because it is still around, and because it is still around, it must mean it is still working." A key leadership discipline in today's world is to constantly challenge the status quo in the workplace. Create a culture where everyone knows "sacred cows" cannot hide. If you don't, you could become one of the casualties that we are seeing more and more of each day.

Think about it. Once great firms like Chrysler, AIG, Polaroid, and A&P now exist as mere shadows of their former selves while others including Bethlehem Steel, Sharper Image, Mervyns, Wickes Furniture and Linens 'n Things have disappeared altogether, in large part because they could not change. The common denominator of all of these sad endings is a literal death grip on the status quo. However, this is not just a large company phenomenon. Small and mid-size companies are just as capable of failing for the same reasons.

The concept of status quo is misleading, because in reality nothing ever stays the same. Everything today is temporary; it is just a matter of degree. Markets, clients and competitors will eventually outgrow and outpace a company if they are unable to change and evolve. Although it may feel comfortable, it is a slow moving business killer. More businesses will disappear in the next year due to a belief in the status quo than for any other reason. To be successful you must learn to think different.

Whether you are conscious of it or not, odds are that you and your team embrace the status quo in a variety of areas. A customer of ours - the president of a large manufacturing company kept a key executive sales position open for over a year because he could not find the right full time person to fill the position while watching his revenues decline. Another retained a poor performing executive far longer than he should have because of his fear of having to go to the expense and time of replacing him. A third customer delayed much-needed marketing expertise while watching leads decline and their salespeople underperform. And a fourth company, again in manufacturing, decided to use his existing executive team to make an important acquisition and ended up with two dysfunctional companies that continue to work independently rather than as one successfully integrated company.

When you think of needing expertise within your executive team to overcome a business stall point or take your company to the next level, do you always conclude that you need to hire a full time executive? When a key executive leaves suddenly, do you leave that position open until you find someone to permanently fill it? When you need expertise that is not within your current executive team, do you just use what you have and hope that they can learn quickly enough to achieve your company goals? Think different from the status quo -- think leadership on-demand.

Today's successful CEOs are thinking outside-the-box and are using interim executives throughout to create sustainable, competitive businesses. Interim executives are filling unexpectedly vacant positions, leading company transitions, guiding the development of new initiatives, executing revenue growth initiatives and managing mergers and acquisitions, initial public offerings and complex financial restructurings. However, not only do interim executives focus on accomplishing a company initiative but they embed a sustaining competence within the company which ensures retention of the value of this interim leadership while returning the company to an ongoing management structure once the interim executive has departed.

There are more benefits, including:

• Depth of experience so they hit the ground running and provide high value impact immediately.
• Constitute a risk mitigation strategy because they have confronted similar challenges previously.
• Responsible and accountable leaders who expect to implement and manage a business or project to its successful conclusion, measured on delivering results.
• Long term impact as they share their experience with internal teams so solutions are embedded into company's business processes.
• In all times, but especially in economic uncertainty, the ability to add and subtract executive staff as needed represents a return on capital strategy; thus not tying up capital in human capital and avoiding costly mistakes in permanent hires.

Don't be another statistic of today's failing companies. Be creative with your human capital options and embrace the use of an interim executive who can provide the leadership on-demand needed to create a sustainable, competitive and growing company.

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Case Study: "Improved operations and the insights necessary to make substantial strategic changes."

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