Episode Details

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 t