Innovate & Engage
“I advise CEOs to embrace this principle: no business can stay a leader in its field without reinvention, and the same is true of individual leaders. If you continue to function according to past expectations, you will fail.” Erica Ariel Fox
I appreciate Erica Fox’s post on LinkedIn, “The Future of Leadership: In the Age of Disruption, Disrupt Yourself”. This allowed me to think back on the different companies / industries that I have been a part of and how we elevated our customers’ expectations by elevating our innovative process.
I was part of a business a while back, where innovation was the key to continuing the business of keeping the customer happy. Every eight to twelve months we would add a new line or a twist to one of the existing lines that we were processing. This was the norm for us. Our salesmen would tell us it was great, because every time they walked into a customer’s show room, they would say “hey what’s new?” And we would have it for them. At times it was a great partnership in that the customer partnered with us and the others in the supply chain to create a new item that we would process and make available to the rest of our client base.
This was also a boost to our employee engagement throughout the company. Our employees were always looking for new items or processes for our customers. They also liked that they were part of the planning and decision making process. This gave us a strong company from top to bottom.
Innovative engagement from customers, suppliers, management, sales personnel, and plant workers is essential in moving any business forward. Consider the ramifications of not using this existing network of people that are already part of the main process today.