Leadership in the 'Emerging Connection Economy'

Relationships are no longer considered 'soft skills' or as Jeff Immelt of GE puts it, "HR is not on the agenda in GE...it is the agenda" (Fortune 2004). No longer is better pricing the sole determining factor as to why people will buy your product or service - more is required. People want a relationship, a story, a connection. People want choice, flexibility, their terms and customer-centric behaviour. No longer can we get away with some slick PR campaign or advertising slogan when it comes to appealing to the customer and potential clients.

TomorrowToday.biz is a group of consultants that help people and organisations make the transition to the connection economy, which largely involves people development.

There are some fundamentally tough questions that businesses should be asking as we move into this new connected economy in which we are going to conduct business. Questions like: "How do we create a competitive advantage in the new economy?" and "What are the implications (in particular for leaders) in the new economy?"

In order to find answers to these questions we must 'go back to the future'. If we are to understand the emerging new economy we need to understand not only the current economy but how it is that we arrived at this point.

In the quest to understand and adapt to the new economy, three things become evident:

Strengths Become Weaknesses

Firstly, guarding our past success is perhaps the surest way to fail in the future. Of course successful pasts are rich in the memories, traditions and methodologies that they encapsulate. But as the 'rules of the game' change, as they do with every transition from one economy to the next, those very strengths can become weaknesses if there is not the willingness to change them in order to adapt to the new environment. Of course conventional wisdom cautions that you 'don't fix it if it isn't broken'. While this wisdom may be appropriate in a particular context, it becomes obvious that as the context changes, as it does in the new economy, holding onto such mindsets and practices can prove to be catastrophic for a business or even an entire industry.

The Future has Happened

Secondly, there is the reality that the future has already happened... it is just that it is unequally distributed. In other words, the impact of the new economy that is already emerging is not necessarily felt by all. The fact that its impact is not immediately felt can serve to create a false sense of security for some businesses and industries. History is littered with industries caught by surprise as the 'future happened'.

Change is Constant

Thirdly, change is constant. While every generation experiences change not every generation lives through an economic transition such as the one currently taking place. It is important to understand our unfolding history not as a linear progression where one economy ends and the next one emerges with no reference to that which has preceded it. It is more helpful to understand one economic era building on the next and where vital lessons learnt in the preceding economy are not disposed, but rather added to in the next.

In this environment it's critical that businesses are clear about why anyone should buy from them. After all, competing businesses sell the same products and offer the same quality services, to the same customers, at similar prices, delivered through the same channels, which are advertised in the same media, using the same techniques, and they even swap staff every few years.

Maybe the even more important question that should be asked is: "why should anyone work for us?" The truth is that we are rapidly transitioning into an age when customers will not buy from you because of what you are selling, but rather because of who you are.

No matter how successful, no matter how seemingly unaffected we may be, the message is clear: we ignore the emerging new economy at our peril.