For the record, I know how to use chopsticks. What I’ve never understood, though, was the function of the deep, Chinese-style spoon that they give you (I’d later learn that it’s called a renge). Determined to finally have an answer to one of life’s eternal questions, I asked the waiter if he could explain how I was meant to use this unfamiliar tool.

After a quick lesson and demonstration, for which my wife and I were extremely grateful, we felt confident using our respective renges. It definitely enhanced the meal, and it was more enjoyable knowing that we were eating the ramen as intended, with effective but non-offensive slurping. In other words, we felt equipped with the right tools for the job.

And so it goes in business — and life — today. Just like you wouldn’t try to eat ramen with a fork, you can’t navigate the increasingly chaotic world of politics, technology, and business with outdated or inadequate tools. 

As columnists, people like me love to take a few minutes at the beginning or end of the year and share our forecasts on what’s coming up in the new year. As I do this, I’m reflecting on where we are right now. As I write, France’s elected officials have chosen to dissolve the current government, where the two extremes came together to oust the middle.

To me, this echoes the chaos that we saw in the U.S. House of Representatives when Kevin McCarthy was ousted without a clear path forward. In the next four years, I think we’re likely to see a lot of that kind of sudden, abrupt upheaval in the political world — disruption is not a byproduct or a possibility, but the clear, stated intent of the new power in Washington.

We can all hope that whatever new solutions get developed will work, but as we see similar movements gaining ground in Germany, a likely shift in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and big changes in the Middle East power structure. One could call this a “rapidly changing landscape.”

This isn’t just political, either. New technologies, specifically AI, are having far-reaching consequences on financial markets, the workplace, and traditional jobs. What jobs will be lost in this process? What industries are going to be destroyed by these changes, and which ones will harness them to achieve new success?

“Many,” is my best answer. If you’re a business leader, this period of disruption probably makes it feel like you can’t catch your breath. Much like when a tree falls in a forest and knocks over another, every move in the political, technological, or economic world seems to have a ripple effect. The connections between politics, business, and technology are tighter than ever, and a mistake in one area can create a cascade of challenges elsewhere. As we consider the next few years of business and world markets, the only certainty seems to be uncertainty.

But this is where the lesson from my ramen dinner comes in. When there is mass uncertainty and a whole lot of the unknown barreling toward you, your best defense is having the right tool. And as a business leader in uncertain times, your best tool is information. In the face of precarity, your ability to absorb, process, and act on information will define your success (or lack thereof).

Unfortunately, this confluence of disruptors is also happening at the same time that we’re seeing a stark decrease in the number of reliable, omnibus sources of information. Traditional media has by and large bifurcated along partisan lines, and this leaves all of us in the unenviable position of filtering out the noise while accessing the information that we critically need to make informed choices.

So what can you do about it?

Start building up your information network now. Include some classic traditional media, but don’t limit yourself. Find thinkers or bloggers or even TikTokers (while the platform is still around) who present up-to-date information on subject areas that matter to you and your business.

To be clear, I’m not advocating for taking everything you hear on TikTok as fact. You need someone (ideally a few someones) who does their research and analyzes credible sources to give you the information that you need to know. Remember, information is a tool, and in the coming years you’ll want the sharpest tool you can get your hands on.

So, as we enter 2025, yes, we’re looking at uncertain times. But uncertainty doesn’t have to be paralyzing. Take some time to look critically at your information sources and ensure that you’ve got a healthy, regular diet of information that’s enriching and will keep you prepared in an exceptionally chaotic environment. While the future is here, it is unevenly distributed. You want in on it first. The most effective tool? Information.

The post Sharpening Your Tools in the Face of Uncertainty appeared first on PARWCC.

People are, naturally, surprised when all of this work often doesn’t result in real, meaningful change.

There was one instance where I was involved in driving change in an organization that desperately needed it — well, there has been more than one instance of that in my career, but there’s one in particular I want to discuss. The organization desperately needed to revamp the way it went to market, so my team and I created a lot of great, thorough strategy documents and did a lot of leg work on developing what the new approach should be and communicating that throughout the organization.

And well, then not much else happened. I walked into the conference room and saw a message on the whiteboard that said: “Culture eats strategy for lunch.” This, to me, is reflective of the reticence to change that you can usually find at any level of a business. A fear of the unknown drives a lot of this fear, but I would challenge that a greater portion stems from personal insecurities about one’s ability to adapt and/or skepticism about having the time to adapt.

I saw this clearly while working with an organization recently that wanted to add in new software and update some old processes to improve their lacking customer service. These were not dramatic changes, but upon trying to implement them, I immediately got a lot of pushback from folks along the frontline, mostly to the tune of, “I’m too busy! I don’t have time to make this faster!”

That thought really struck me: I don’t have time to get better or faster at this because I’m busy. I reflected a lot on the resistance to change and how to give people the space, emotionally and practically, to enact positive changes. 

The natural conclusion of this pondering is, of course, that I’m going to start tinkering with things. And I encourage you to do the same in your own life — ask yourself, “Why aren’t I where I want to be? What’s the thing getting in the way of allowing me to make changes?”

For the purposes of this thought experiment, I’ll assume that you’ve already done the foundational work of developing a clearly articulated vision and reason for why the change is necessary. Logically, this probably feels like it should result in change. But even with a clear vision and proper tools at the ready, how are you giving people time and tools to make these adaptations? 

Do you bring in extra help? That can take some of the work off your peoples’ plates while they adjust, but it also scares people and gives them the impression that they might be due for replacing, especially during a time of larger change. Or maybe do you bring in trainers instead, although you run the risk of it being another do-nothing training session passed down by higher-ups that doesn’t result in a meaningful difference in daily operations?

However you do it, you have to find a way to shift the workload without stopping cash flow. And frankly, that can get pricey. You might consider starting a change in the culture as an investment, just like buying new hardware. Your goal, then, is to make that investment in a way that will yield observable results.

Because what I know for sure is that just telling people that they have to change doesn’t cut it. I’m guessing that you’ve been up against resistance to change before as well. On my part, I’m going to make those investments in giving people the space and comfort to make the changes that the organization needs to see. My hypothesis is that this will lead to a lot less pushback and I’ll see a nice return on my investment in facilitating these changes.

Or maybe I’ve misidentified the issue and people will be just as averse to change as ever. The only real way to know is to run my tests and figure it out.

One curious thing about management introducing new tools and toys for their employees is that, undeniably, not all change is good. At the same time, no change is rarely the right answer. Good management, though, is having the wisdom to listen to your people, look at the market, and try to understand which changes your organization needs to make to keep apace with the world. That is more of a constantly moving goal than a destination one reaches, but I still think it’s worth striving for.

The post The Real Cost of Change appeared first on PARWCC.

I’ve been guilty of this in the past. When my children were younger, they adopted a cat and my wife and I generously (perhaps foolishly) let them name it whatever they wanted. They chose Pud. Why? I could not begin to imagine, but I share this to illustrate the importance of getting out in front of naming something rather than leaving it to chance.

Early in my career, I took over management of a media company where they established a smart program of pre-booking an interesting collection of fixed and unique spots, which had to be reserved on a long-term basis. The very wise concept was to lock in recurring revenue so you started each month with a solid base, in exchange for a discount to the customer. 

When I got there, they were only half reserved and the sales team groaned if you asked about it. Digging into the program, I was handed the log that tracked it, the “Base Revenue Worksheet.” 

This was the name given to it by the accountant who set it up, and it turns out the sales team just took that exact page out as support material. I mean no disrespect to accountants, but if you’re a retailer and someone comes to talk to you about this great, game-changing product that they should definitely buy right now, how excited are you going to be when that product is called the Base Revenue Program?

Understandably, the company struggled to keep the spots filled. When I had control, we burned the worksheet, rebranded it, and moved some of the styling around so that sales would see it as a brand-new product with a catchier name like Sales Success Features. Suddenly the Sissyphian task of selling it became much easier, and spots started selling out consistently. Just by changing the name…

The topic of naming came up for me recently while sitting around the table with my family. My daughter talked about her coffee with oat milk and how great it was. I said that I didn’t understand — words mean things, and mammals produce milk, whereas vegetables and fruits can be made into juice. To me, she was more accurately putting oat juice in her coffee.

My daughter disagreed, so I sought support from the very educated members of my family. I was, however, summarily thrown under the bus, saying that the meaning of the word milk was sufficiently malleable to encompass byproducts of oats or almonds.

For the record, I still disagree.

Nevertheless, this did get me thinking about how much a single word can matter. My personal feelings aside, we can all acknowledge that adding oat juice to your coffee would be unthinkable, but adding oat milk to your drink feels natural and easy. The manufacturers certainly could have tried to market oat juice, but because they put in the time to think of a clever name, Starbucks now has a new way to increase the price of your already overpriced morning beverage.

As you look at your own business and product/service offerings, how well have you done at creating thoughtful, compelling labels? One company I work with was contemplating a live training series, but nobody seemed inclined to give it a name beyond Live Training Series. When I insisted, despite pushback, that it did in fact need a name, they took some time to consider how they wanted to position this offering.

This was during the height of the pandemic, and the name that they came back with was perfect — Thrive. Because at that moment, nothing sounded more compelling than the idea of not just surviving, but thriving. 

The series was a great success and went on to spawn more conferences and live training events. Do I think that this was wholly due to the name? Certainly not — a lot of intelligent, talented people put hours of work into making a great product that did exactly what it promised to do. But the name gave the program an identity, a life, a purpose. 

So as you work on developing your own products and advancing your company, pay close attention to how you’re naming (or not naming) things. Regardless of the specifics of your business, words matter. Because nobody has ever wanted to put almond juice in their coffee.

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