(By Buzz Knight) Society runs at a fast pace. The highways during commuting hours are filled with drivers moving faster than ever to get to wherever their destination is. Big city streets exhibit the hustle and bustle of activity and energy.
When we are around team members in a workplace setting, we feed off of those who have an energy and momentum to their aura. In thinking about the pace and tone of leadership, is that pace matching that of the real world?
Slow and steady can be a good strategy if the business you are in is in a mature stage and it is yielding nice, consistent dividends, but I feel frequently that being bold and quick is a missing link in the leadership and business equation.
Challenging times call for a sense of flow and movement. Just like any sports team that is behind in a game with the clock running out, the clock is ticking when it comes to cash flow, return on investment, paying down debt, or finding new funnels of revenue to replace that which has vaporized.
No more should leadership be comfortable just waiting for a cycle to change, thinking a new win is inevitable, and using hope as a strategy. The time is now to take steps to grow audiences to match new ways of consumption, new opportunities for loyalty, and fresh opportunities to grow revenue.
This isn’t going to happen with an old playbook. These times require new methods that can awaken the media world with excitement. Yet, it can feel dangerous to act quickly and boldly. We all can have moments where we fear stepping out of our comfort zone to try a different approach. Often this fear leads to paralysis and over-analysis.
It’s time for leaders to break from the old thinking and create a next-generation approach to problem-solving and idea implementation.
I think it is important for each of us to establish calls to action that are a little on the edge. This type of danger can also be fun – especially when you are encouraging your teams to be bold and quick in how they approach the challenges and opportunities of today and tomorrow.
We sometimes forget the importance of small failures as a means to bigger ideas and successful innovations. Let’s pick up the pace, not overthink ourselves to death, and get some things done.
Buzz Knight can be reached by e-mail at [email protected]. Read Buzz’ Radio Ink archives here.
