Mastering the Trends Outline
I was twelve hours into a planning retreat when the facilitator popped the SWOT grid onto the screen. Three people groaned out loud; one actually banged their head on the table. Not one to take a hint, the facilitator dragged us through another two hours, brainstorming a rambling list which gave use zero focus.
So I went back through other SWOT rambles and saw two things: one, we could deal with internal issues (strengths and weakness) separately and, two, there were six common types of external trends (opportunities and threats). Knowing those six will give you focus:
- Customers
- Employees
- Technology
- Regulations
- Macroeconomic
- Competitors
The Center’s Milwaukee Workgroup—who come from very different sectors—started a general list of management trends (scroll to bottom), but you should do these three things:
- Brainstorm your own list
- Group the related trends
- Then pick the top two or three you’re going to react to
Members
- Nathan Bares
- Bob DeVita
- Bill Mitchell
- Valerie Renk
- Tim Stewart
- Kristi Thering
- Derrick Van Mell
Three big lessons:
- Accelerating change means you need both shorter planning horizons and a longer view
- Pay attention to trends that conflict, e.g., Improving collaboration tech and isolation burnout
- Leaders must have the savvy and courage to respond now to good and bad trends
One more big idea: Get a volunteer in your organization to be your “futurist” for the year. A great role for a new employee. They’ll help generate the new, new ideas and dodge risks.
TRENDS OUTLINE (general)
CUSTOMER (demographics, behaviors)
- Need for more flexible pricing (e.g., Tesla)
- Changing shopping habits (i.e., digital marketing)
- Customer service and service delivery online—in part
- More online learning
EMPLOYEES (demographics, behaviors)
- Engagement will be the biggest challenge (see footer)
- Need to support emotional well-being
- Stress and burnout (also limits time to learn and develop)
- Great Resignation; people asking existential questions
- Increasing pay and benefits
- More employees being pirated. Daily pressure
- Much stronger need for employee engagement
- Retirements reducing volunteer pool
- Different ways to access and develop talent
- Get talent from overseas
- Uncertainty about how many can work remotely
- Uncertainty about the physical work environment
- Needs for development vs. time for development: skills will be outdated several times in a career
- Diversity, equity and inclusion
- Increasing unionization
REGULATIONS (local, state, federal, global)
- Rate of regulatory changes is increasing
- Need to stay current about changing regulation
- Increased need for government market support
TECHNOLOGY (communication, production, managerial)
- More automation in many sectors
- Improving collaboration tools
- More e-commerce
- AI everywhere and in everything
- Internet evolution
- Online learning
MACROECONOMICS (inflation, cost of capital, foreign trade)
- Supply chain delays and limitations continuing
- Need to buy locally or within one’s nation
- Increasing costs of materials and services
- Very expensive construction costs
- Inflation increasing
- Recession likely
- Opportunity for US growth in critical goods (e.g., chips)
- $1T on infrastructure spending
- Increased role for government in social services (grants)
COMPETITORS (industry concentration, innovations, new entrants)
- Weak businesses closing or sold
- Concentration among competitors
- Now competing globally and with many sizes
- More affiliations for core services and components