subject: Leadership: How Well Do You Understand The New Rules? [print this page] Business and leadership articles are of three types. 60% are like water: fit to drink but better left to the fish. 35% are like beer: with a quick zing but nothing to remember. Finally, there's the 5% of first-growth wines that change our worldview. The winemakers here are the Druckers, the Prahalads and their ilk. Many already dead! But, not Shoshana Zuboff. She's still with us, thank goodness. Her McKinsey Quarterly article "Creating value in the age of distributed capitalism" is premium wine. Don't be put off by her title; this is no abstract economic treatise. It's a must-buy for all leaders. It gives you a taste of the world, in which you're going to be leading - starting now. It's as dramatic a shift as that from individual workshops to mass production that was initiated by Henry Ford a hundred years ago. So, how well are you prepared for the new demands? Here are five questions that allow you to check.
How can you ensure each customer has personal control of what he/she gets? In a world where what Zuboff calls the "I-space" (of personal needs) is the driver, how can you re-create your business so individuals control how their needs are satisfied? The music companies stuck to old, business-centric thinking. Apple demolished this with their iPod and iTunes, where you're in charge.
Which are the once-valuable assets you have to reconfigure to meet the "I-space" demands? For Apple, this was the music catalogues. For Google, it may be the out-of-copyright books, which can be digitised and made accessible in whatever way helps meet an "I-space" customer. What's the equivalent for you or your competitors?
How will you bypass outmoded delivery systems? As Zuboff says: distance learning steps around the costs, assumptions and value-destroying practices of legacy education. In the new digital paradigm, where are the most blatant examples of this need in your industry?
Where and how will you create the flexibility to make each customer's experience uniquely their own? Options and "Apps" are part of the solution. What can be done in your case? And, if you don't; who else might - and how?
How will you integrate the full range of digital tools, platforms and social relationships so your customer feels empowered? The customer has always been king, but only of a limited domain: perhaps controlling the colour of the suit and whether to buy an extra skirt or pair of trousers. It's been a sweetener but NOT the business driver. Zuboff illustrates how this is being trialled in care for the elderly - a topic, as I get older, in which I have an increasingly personal interest!
Let me brag for a moment! In my V|E|C|T|O|R Leadership action-planning tool, I've put you (the leader - my customer!) in the driver's seat. You plan what actions to take, so people will elect to follow you. You're the problem-solver, not me. And, each planning step puts the people you need to follow you (your leadership customers!) at the centre of the problem-solving. Each step asks "what would they recommend?" In sum, it enfranchises the ultimate customers; not me (the tool provider) nor you (their leader). In fact, some time back, I expressed it thus: we do for your leadership what your iPod does for your music. No wonder I think Professor Zuboff is onto something. In her terms, this is leadership for the twenty-first century. In it, her I-space beacon already shines brightly. For the future, it's the only light to trust. As Zuboff argues: we follow that light or we fade out.
