Daily Inspiration: “….successful organizations are those who have quickly moved beyond being dazed and confused into a status of being comfortably numb…”

“History has taught us that successful organizations are those who have quickly moved beyond being dazed and confused into a status of being comfortably numb, combined with short, sharp shocks of creative action!” – Futurist Jim Carroll

I dunno, blame it on cabin fever, but I’m going with the quote!

I forced myself to start a video series yesterday that I’ll focus on through the next few weeks – “Leadership In Crisis And The Strategy of ‘Next’. It’s tough to do, because it is tremendously difficult for leaders everywhere right now to focus on anything other than survival.

But I vividly remember in late 2008 when the leader of one global organization who had booked me for an event stated on a pre-event call: “We’ve got this survival thing down. Now we’re moving on to phase two.”

I ended up writing a blog post after the phone call. This is what I said.

“We established three strategic priorities. Number one, survive. Number two, innovate. Number three, grow. We’ve got the survival thing down. Now we’re into phase two.”

Phase two is the reason why they are having this leadership meeting, which has just been pulled together over the last several weeks. My role is that I’ll provide them with an overview of key trends to think about; how I see other organizations dealing with fast paced economic change, not to mention my fundamental insight on “innovating in the high velocity economy.”

The comments of this particular CEO certainly outlines the stark reality of the speed of the global economic pullback.

Yet, it also offers up some evidence to my theory that some organizations are going to come out of “this thing” quicker than most people think. Organizations that focus on innovation can act faster than they did in previous recessions. They’ve learned how to be more collaborative; they can share ideas and insight faster; they can react and re-react based on fast paced trends. The result is that they can try out a variety of strategies to re-align their business for new realities.

Food for thought!