Rodney Johnson - Without Warning

Welcome to a whole new world.  A place where constant turmoil is making business plans irrelavant, leaders challenged and sound decision making paramount to survival.

How can you lead and win in this environment?

Over the past 6-months, most business leaders have come to realize they must lead differently.  They understand that business as normal doesn’t exist.  They comprehend that long term plans are on hold, and short term decisions are key to survival.  They know the rules to the game have changed.  And its this last point that is relevant and important, which is why I like numerous aspects of this manifesto over at ChangeThis  It looks back at the origins of improv on the Southside of Chicago during the depths of the great Depresssion.  It states, In the periods of upheaval, imagination triumphs over status quo, and innovators and visionaries find opportunities that do not exist in balmier times.  Viola Spolin, the mother of improv in her 1963 book  “Improvisation for Theater” writes, “In its simplest terms, it is giving problems to solve problems.”

In today’s environtment, every leader is given problems from the environment in which they reside.  In turn, leaders are expected to solve these problems as they surface, which at times might resemble ”Improv.”  It’s thinking, acting and deciding as you go.  At times, this will be awkward and troublesome.  At other times, it might present opportunities to pursue and potentially, exploit.

Yes, at times, “Business is Improv.”