All change starts with disequilibrium: something being ‘off’.
The ‘off’ can take many forms: not working; disruptive feedback; under-performance; unmet ambition; and restlessness.
Received in the right way, disequilibrium is very helpful – crucial, even – in pushing something forward. It applies to a business, a team, or a project and regardless of the context, disequilibrium is a direct signal that change is needed.
The problem is when no feedback comes and the situation you’re in is flat, or apathetic.
Should this be the case, then the crucial input of ‘hope’ has been lost and needs to be recreated. Hope = Life Force, and without life force in its people, any level of business performance is going to be close to impossible.
If you, as a CEO, are in this position, then you might need to create disequilibrium: cause some (healthy) conflict and shake things up.
Business can be a grind. There is a quality to being a business leader that can lean toward monotony due to the rigours of reporting and meeting unrelenting customer or shareholder needs. It doesn’t have to be this way, but for many leaders it is.
This grind needs to be watched like a hawk because eventually, CEOs normalise the feeling of being uninspired. It sets in like a dampness and it becomes harder to detect, harder to work with, and difficult to shift.
So, how do we shake things up?
- You can jolt yourself into action by doing some challenging personal development
- You can raise the bar of expectations
- You can publicly admonish someone or something for poor performance
- You can initiate a new and more ambitious strategy process
- You can reset financial goals
- You can ask tough, uncomfortable questions
- You can change the arrangement of a team
These acts – in and of themselves – are a message and this message will create conflict. People might not agree with you. People might not want it. People might resist it. People might be upset.
Regardless of the response, this is good energy to work under good leadership.
And far better than no energy at all.