Crisis are/constitute inflection points. Also M&A, extraordinary organic growth, relocations, and entering new markets. Keep adding. Pain is inevitable, misery is a choice, and coming out stronger and wiser the real, real winner.
At inflection points, new possibilities arrive at the door, wanted or unwanted. It’s not business as usual. It’s not extrapolation of the immediate past. Suddenly you are running out of toolkits. Energy comes from everywhere, by nature or by force. Adrenaline is up. Brains and hearts start to connect, en masse. It’s an inflection. It’s a fork in the road. You could go one way or another, but certainly not on the same road.
These are reboot mechanisms. Mechanisms of re-alignment, reinvention, perhaps (fast) renewal. If used properly, they add tremendous energy and possibilities. Some leaders have a habit of making them a pain. Then pain multiplies and you get misery. Other leaders will grab the opportunity and will launch a call to arms. Pain also may be inevitable here, but they avoid the choice of misery, and people look up, stronger.
I suggest that (1) inflection points are good and that (2) you should not wait for them, you should create them.
Disturbing some status quo, injecting a time out, asking fundamental questions of purpose in times where these are not forced upon you, is very healthy.
The point of the inflection point is to go up the curve. To come out stronger, wiser, perhaps a bit more humble. But never the same as before.
A feature of the organization of the future, the one that has started a while ago, is the ability to reboot and perhaps self-reconfigure. Whether you want to call it vaccination against complacency (OK with me) or Innovation in the DNA (OK with me) or permanent (stay in) Beta (I prefer this one), it’s all the same: inflect, inflect, inflect.
Don’t wait for the curve to come to you, you decide when abandoning the curve and go up.
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