Chris MillerCEO, Illuminomics
founding member of Mindspring
www.illuminomics.com
We all know these are uncertain times. They are not made any more certain by actions that show even our best and brightest are winging their way through this. It is easy in times of high anxiety to lose perspective and forget those specific elements that made our "mojo" work in the first place. No, this isn't an attempt to promote wild optimism about what will or won't happen; it is an attempt to outline some items I keep returning to for seeing the bigger picture.
In my role as Chief Executive Troublefinder for Illuminomics, a boutique business and community consulting group that fields small teams of super-smart people to tackle wicked-hard problems that create innovative solutions and adaptive sustainable economic strategies, I am well positioned with a great view of the ugliest problems out there. It is from this context that I would like to hold out some hope. Yes, it is bad; no it is not the end of the world; yes, we will have to adapt.
The thing that makes me most optimistic is that many of the changes we are going through and most of the ones we will see are changes that were long overdue. In most cases, either we have been there before or others have been there before us. In the former case, I am referring to our values of adaptability, frugality, and perseverance. We had these once. We have them now, we just need to re-discover them and remind ourselves of what they have done for us in the past, and learn to apply the same principles to our current and future problems.
In the latter case, my recent ongoing work with businesses and communities in Scandinavia and Europe has reminded me of those dance steps we will need to add. First, they are good steps to know, second no one has yet died learning them, and third, if we don't learn them, then we really will have serious problems. In this case, I'm referring to a focus on effectiveness, efficiency, quality through design, and a willingness to implement solutions appropriate for a larger context and longer-term time horizon. Add to that, a slight shift in emphasis on how we balance the overall community good vs. individual behaviors, and you'll have several elements that are cause for cautious optimism. Here's why.
Yes, there are some new steps. No, it won't necessarily be easy or simple to incorporate these old and new elements in to our repertoire, but.... if we do, we will be stronger, happier and in a much better competitive position than if we disregard the opportunity for change the current economic situation represents. For my own operation and for my clients, those that incorporate these new ideas the earliest will be the soonest to recover and have the longest legs coming out of the downturn.
So why am I so optimistic? Because we get to re-discover our own strengths, we get to incorporate new ideas and methods into our business practices, we will be more competitive, and, oh.... because we should have been doing this all along anyway. We just got a little lost along the way.
It's OK to learn new things, and in many cases more than well worthwhile. Now is our chance; if we so choose.