by Peter A. Arthur-Smith, Leadership Solutions, Inc.®

“Why is it we’re not so interested in what’s going on outside of our organization, company, team or institution?”

 Most organizations or teams take an Inside-out View. They’re more preoccupied with what’s going on inside their organizations than what’s happening outside it. Perhaps that’s because they find its inner machinations more interesting, concrete and understandable than what’s occurring in their wider world. Is this because executives and others feel they have more influence over events that take place nearer to their finger tips than those farther afield?

And yet, if they could really understand what’s happening outside their organization, they would be well positioned to take advantage of so many more opportunities. Within the natural biological world birds, plants, marine life, and fauna constantly mutate and adapt to the changing environment around them. Without that they would quickly become extinct.

Is that why so many once successful organizations disappear, too? They become so wrapped up in themselves that they forget to adjust to the world around them. Like the biological world, man-made domains have to follow the market rather than expecting the market to follow them. Executives should appreciate that by being more outside-in focused, they can expect greater:

» Customer/Client Responsiveness – When customers/clients sense their suppliers and advisors are truly bent on meeting their needs and sensitivities, they will reward those enterprises with greater loyalty, business and good intentions. One primary reason for this is clearly because outside-in organizations will accurately predict and respond to their customer/client needs. Hence the customer/client is more inclined to award business or contracts in the outside-in entity’s direction. Most customers/clients instinctively know when they are being well taken care of.

» Market Intelligence – By being firmly preoccupied with what’s happening within your marketplace, it’s far more  likely that your enterprise will be sensitized to market events, trends, and inconsistencies that emerge and therefore bring super- market awareness. Through being overly focused on internal events, many market changes and signals could well be missed. Some of those missed factors could prove devastating or lead to opportunity-shortsightedness.

» People Performance – A natural preoccupation of most effective leaders is maximizing their entity’s level of people engagement. So many overlook the reality that: if they fully focus their people on highly relevant external targets, issues or opportunities, it minimizes infighting, bureaucratic tendencies and inefficiency. Done right, their people will step-up to external challenges and opportunities, instead of resorting to typical back-biting, coasting and politicking synonymous with inside-out entities.

» Board/Owner Effectiveness – Similarly when board members and/or owners are fully focused on external opportunities and challenges; they are likely to be more motivated and helpful. Boards or owners much prefer to discuss market advances and possibilities than advising on internal organization matters. They are usually not close enough to internal matters or personalities anyway to offer the best advice.

» Suppliers – As external entities, suppliers – rather than vendors, where it’s high time we ditched such an unflattering designation – will appreciate any extra attention they receive also. In return, most of them will reciprocate with greater attentiveness and make greater efforts to watch out for your best interests, as well.

By now you will be fully briefed on the significant value of being viewed as an outside-in organization. But your view of your outside world could also be rather like being in your office and looking out the window at a sunny, foggy or rain-beating-against- the-glass day? What do you do in the latter two instances? If it’s sunny, where you can clearly see your customers and marketplace, that is obviously your preferred scenario. But what do you do on the foggy or rainy days?

If it’s a brief occurrence, then it’s likely not a major deal. But the stormy, foggy or rainy market days could remain for weeks on end. Then what? One clear option would be to pull together a really astute group of people within your organization – many good heads are better than one.  Six or seven – including you – is an optimum number. Because they are astute, they are more likely to be outside-in focused, and therefore have a greater feel for your marketplace. Once this team is in place and appropriately challenged to your scenario, you can move through the following vistas with it:

» Vista 1 – Agree on where your organization or team intends to keep going; apart from new relevant information which could cause you all to change course.

» Vista 2 – Allow the group to offer any number of issues or opportunities it feels could aid or prevent your organization or team in accomplishing its intended destination. (NOTE: Their collective wisdom will go a long way to peer through the fog or stormy, market weather.)

»Vista 3 – Allow them to prioritize their top three opportunities or issues.

»Vista 4 – Now split the six up into three “pairs,” since work-pairing is an optimum way of making things happen.

»Vista 5 – Encourage each pair – where two heads are often better than one – to put together an optimum action initiative based upon WHAT, HOW, WHO, WHEN and WHERE (to go for well-informed allies for input).

» Vista 6 – Allow them to share their initiative with the other pairs and then set-out to make them come to fruition over a period of 3-6 months. Then encourage them to share these initiatives with as many other appropriate members within the organization as is practicable to gather their thoughts and buy-in, too.  A clear beginning and end should now become apparent.

» Vista 7 – Regular follow-through with each pair is vital to show organization interest in their activities and make adjustments where necessary. This is particularly true at the mid-point, where some pairs may lose focus.

» Vista 8 – Celebrate their successes. This is so important for obvious reasons, but also to encourage pairs to be ready to do it all over again the next time around.

And so each pair presses forward; despite the storm. Hopefully that market storm will eventually clear, where each pair can always recalibrate their efforts in light of any fresh deviations that may have occurred despite their best predictions. The key point being, you don’t overly slow down owing to a murky or stormy market situation. If you are a genuine “outside-in” organization, there will be sufficient residual market insights available among an astute group of key people to make reasonable guesstimates while the storm or fog persists.

If you are currently an “inside-out” organization, where everyone is preoccupied with politics, second-guessing and people shuffling, then you will probably just sit on your hands during market-stormy times. That could prove fatal.

To find out more about building an outside-in organization, talk with: