Summary
It seems like everyone is being encouraged to pivot - to try something completely new in order to maintain your job or business. But it’s important to pause before you pivot and consider four Cs - Capability, Content, Channel and Call.
Transcript
Hello and welcome to episode 76 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we look at the need to pause before we pivot, and consider four Cs - Capability, Content, Channel and Call.
There’s a lot of focus at the moment on the need for organisations and individuals to pivot. That we need to look for something new to do rather than sticking with old approaches. That being agile and nimble is essential to survival in rapidly changing circumstances.
Research by LinkedIn highlights the tension for individuals, showing 22% of people feel like they’ve just fallen into their job without much planning, and 23% are feeling like they are on a treadmill going nowhere. Why not give something completely different a try?
While I absolutely agree with the sentiment behind this, it’s important to pause before you pivot. Yes, there are new opportunities emerging every day, but the answer isn’t to mindlessly change what we’re doing and hope for the best. We can bring a far more considered and systematic approach.
LinkedIn and other social media feels like a giant experiment at the moment, with people and organisations throwing forth seemingly random ideas and offers in an attempt to find a solid foothold. Much of it is driven by a genuine desire to be helpful, or at least needed. And much of it will ultimately fail. There’s just not enough substance behind many of these pivots.
It’s helpful to think of the need and capacity to pivot in terms of four Cs - Capability, Content, Channel and Call. I know this sounds like I’ve pivoted overnight to a podcast on marketing, but we can think of these four Cs for ourselves and our organisations when considering whether to pivot, and where to pivot.
For any organisation or individual, we bring value to the world via our Capability and Content delivered through a Channel. We then receive value back based on whether there is a Call or demand for what we bring.
You can think of Capability as the skills and abilities that we bring to bear. There are things that we can do that are potentially of value to others. And we can always develop our Capability through the investment of time and effort.
Content is what we know. It’s the knowledge that we’ve acquired over time. It’s our views and perspectives about different areas. We can always build more Content.
Then there is the Channel. If you think about this from a marketing perspective, a Channel is how you connect and communicate with others. In the context of making a pivot, a Channel is how you bring your Capability and Content to the market. That might be a job, or a voluntary role, or a business, or a blog. It’s the conduit between you and the outside world.
The final and perhaps most important area is Call. Here I’m talking about the market demand. If you’re looking to remain employed or in business, the Call will be mainly financial - how you can bring value that warrants the amount you are paid. But even if you’re doing something in a voluntary capacity, there still needs to be a Call for what you’re offering. When considering Call the key question is “what do people want or need?”
A risky pivot is to try to change in multiple areas simultaneously. For example, to do something outside of our Capability, with new Content, through a new Channel, without a clear sense of the Call. We are much better at any point in time to pivot in one or two areas, rather than all four.
We do want to experiment, but think of a minimum viable product based on a clear Call. Start by thinking about what people need - clarify the Call. Then, rather than working away at something that requires a huge investment, why not test a smaller version of that first? I hate the term, but it might be a side-hustle alongside your paid employment. Or it could be a new service or product for your business.
I’ll provide an example from my own business. At Leadership Today our mission is to help leaders to achieve results through people for good. That’s why we exist. The mission hasn’t really changed in the past 8 years, but it has been refined and clarified.
When I speak with clients, the Call I’m hearing around leadership development at the moment is in two areas - well-being and remote leadership. How do leaders look after themselves and others in a broad definition of well-being? And how do leaders lead teams that are physically distanced and isolated? There is an ongoing Call for leadership development that aligns with the mission of my organisation, but these two areas are most pressing.
If I think about those two leadership development needs in terms of Content, there’s a lot I know about leadership in both of those areas. But there’s always more I can learn, so I’ve been spending some time increasing my Content knowledge.
In terms of Channels, up to last year I had been primarily using this podcast and face-to-face leadership development programs to deliver my Capability and Content to the market. But even before the pandemic, I saw that the vast majority of people who listen to this podcast are outside of my home country of Australia, so I was already looking at ways to deliver what I know (the Content) to people where face-to-face would not always be possible (the Channel). So, for me, I had already identified webinars, online workshops, and online courses make a lot of sense in linking the Content to the people who want it (the Call). The pandemic has just increased the Call.
It’s then that Capability comes to the fore. So I can record podcasts, but I also have experience in recording video for leadership development programs, and also in hosting webinars and online web conferences. Perfect - I’m pretty much ready to go from a Capability perspective.
Taken together, the Call is slightly refined, the Capability is pretty much there, the Content just needs tweaking - it’s the Channel that’s the greatest change. So that’s a pivot mainly in one area - totally do-able. And I can try it out with some low risk experiments and learn quickly to refine the Channel.
At this point you might be saying, “that’s great for you Andrew and I’m glad your business is going well, but I’m in a job or looking for new work”.
Let’s take the example of someone who has recently lost their job. It might be tempting for them to either try and find exactly the same job but in another organisation, or go completely to the other end of the spectrum and try something entirely different. The best answer is likely in between these two extremes.
You can think of the job as the Channel - it’s the way you deliver your Capability and Content to the market, the market being your organisation. I think we often underestimate the breadth of Channels or jobs across which we could bring our skills and knowledge to life. We also routinely underestimate our Capability and Content. But we also need to recognise the market demand - the Call.
Let’s say I’m a flight attendant and I’m out of work as the number of flights occurring has dropped dramatically. It might be tempting for me to try to find the same job somewhere else - to keep the same Channel and try to join a new airline as a flight attendant. But the Call has dropped dramatically globally. So then I should invest my time thinking about the Channel and the Call. Where are my skills and capabilities in demand? Sure, I could also rush off and do a course in something completely different - I could focus on Capability and Content. But then I’m looking at Capability, Content, Channel and Call at the same time. That’s not impossible, but it is risky. It would have been safer to develop my Capability and Content while I was also safely employed.
One final example. I was recently looking for a laptop stand and couldn’t find one anywhere due to the sudden increase in people working and schooling from home. Everyone was out of stock with future deliveries nowhere in sight. I stumbled across a great Australian business called Stagekings. They were, until recently, focused on making staging for concerts and performances. Clearly, that work has dried up during the pandemic - the Channel and Call had both evaporated. They were facing the prospect of closing down and laying off staff until things returned to normal, whenever that might be. So they looked at their Capability and what the market needed, the Call. They saw the huge demand for desks, monitor stands and laptop stands. They connected this to their Capability to manufacture plywood structures using a commercial router, and started making exactly what people needed - easy to ship and assemble desks and related products. Sure, that meant they needed to develop some new Capability and Content, but those areas were less of a stretch. It turns out making a monitor stand isn’t that different to making a stage. They now have their original team busier than ever, have hired more people, and are even using event crew to drive delivery trucks. On top of all of that, they donate money towards supporting out of work people in the event industry. So, for them it was the perfect pivot.
It’s tempting for me to look at their business and think “why didn’t I think of that?”. But, even if I recognised the Call, I lacked in the other three areas of Capability, Content and Channel. Pivoting from leadership development to desk manufacturing would have been way too big a pivot. But pivoting from stage construction to desk construction is less of a stretch. Still challenging, but ultimately successful. If you’re in Australia, go to stagekings.com.au and check them out.
So, yes, I absolutely encourage you to think about a pivot. Just ensure you’re keeping in mind the four C’s - Capability, Content, Channel and Call. Try not to make radical shifts in more than two at once. And don’t underestimate how much value you already have to bring.
Just a quick reminder that I have a free webinar coming up on the morning of the 8th May in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore, or the afternoon and evening of the 7th May in the US. The topic is “The Six Daily Practices of Outstanding Leaders”. You can register at leadership.today - just look for the link on the homepage. I’ll make sure the next webinar is at a decent hour for my European audience, but you can also check out previous recorded webinars at our website.
Also, I’m running a number of online workshops for clients around topics including Well-Being for Leaders and The Six Daily Practices of Remote Leadership. They’re interactive and just an hour long. We’re getting great feedback about the research-based content, practical tips and facilitation approach. Send me a message via the website if you’re interested in having me run an online workshop with your organisation. Have a great week.
Reference
Blair Heitmann (2018) Nearly a Third of U.S. Professionals Are Career Sleepwalking: A Career Pivot Could Be Your Wake Up Call. LinkedIn Official Blog