When credit markets seized and construction slowed in '08 it seemed as if we had rebooted into safe mode. We're still in it.

Safe mode is when we can only accomplish the most basic tasks; where we may be able to patch a hole, but a creative solution is too big a challenge for the system. 

Since then, I’ve been jotting odd client comments in the margins of my notepad, and this is what hear, even today:

• “We can’t explore a new market, because we don’t have anyone to serve it.”

• “We can’t launch a new technology, because we don’t have anyone to market it.”

• “We can’t find a new customer, because we don’t have anyone to call on them.”

• “We can’t upgrade our product line, because we’re only familiar with the old product line.”

• “We can’t consider new business models, when the old one is on life support.”

Safe Mode is where you can’t do what you want. And the sooner we escape it, the better. But here’s the quandary: we should neither hire speculatively, nor depend on the market to rebound to prior growth rates. So the key will be to find the formula for competitive advantage even in a time when volatility is the norm.

The number of people that a business can hire is of course limited by budgets and forecasts (mostly budgets), and by extension, so is the sum product of its talent. Of course, a business can always try to get the most from its teams, but if our client’s comments are any indication, we’re now witness to the maximum working threshold of resident talent.

“Doing more with less” is no longer a sustainable business model, it’s now stalling our progress.

Talent, unlike any other core resource, is the driving force behind competitive advantage in any market. The current economy -- one of sustained volatility and uncertainly -- has created a troubling new dynamic that we believe must be addressed: let’s call it “talent-introverted.” In this situation, very smart people who have made the cut through rounds of layoffs are so busy and so cautious that they have become ineffective. We see them clustering in small, centralized, 60-hour-a-week groups defending a shrinking core business and waiting.

Change seems out of the question for two reasons: the future is too difficult to predict so any movement seems too risky, and second, if change did happen, it would require resources that everyone assumes will never come available, which, of course, is not true.

Talent-introverted is centralized and secluded, and wastes valuable limited resources, and it's a sign that an organization hasn't yet come to terms with Finite-Rules. 

“Finite-Rules” are central to a business view where the core limits of a market are as informative to strategy and tactics as a market’s inherent potential. Finite-Rule thinking finds that there is value to be earned both in periods of growth and in periods of decline (because both are better understood as periods of change), and that a company must be able to successfully play on either end of the curve.

In Finite-Rule thinking, talent faces out to listen, increase awareness and drive change. It is dispatched on demand to the places where it can do the most good, and is made highly effective with agile, smart processes and tools. Finally, it teaches (the organization and the customer) by doing. How?

To start, Finite-Rule thinking is usually counter-intuitive. For example: in the last decade, many businesses have bought into the idea that they can take control of their markets with a central Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. The logic is that if information about the customer is available throughout a business, everyone can and will respond to customer requests more precisely. The information is gathered into a warehouse of forms and workflows. But what have we learned from CRM? Most effective account managers are either too improvisational to follow a form, or simply sidestep the process -- thinking data entry time is wasted time. Usually they’re right. Meanwhile, CRM stakeholders spend more time keying in useless data than considering what customers are actually saying. So the system is either ineffective for lack of data, or biased towards the least important business events. The mistake is in centralizing and codifying. Effectiveness depends on what happens outside of the CRM system: where key insights from customer discussions fuel a creative business response.

So in Finite-Rules, it is better to capture the essence of the improvisation. Consider that a top account manager offers a teaching moment to the organization with each successful value-adding event. And consider that those events are usually rich in creativity, as opposed to a concrete process. The manager is always thinking: “How can I add value now?” One event will never look the same as the next. The talent-out organization enables the work with a decentralized structure, combined with the ability to assess the most important events for common lessons. By design, exploratory discussion quickly morphs into the positing of new ideas to solve problems, and when those problems are solved, the next in line are tackled. This is how value is created and delivered sustainably.

Instead of waiting for a market or trying to corner it, a talent-out organization is helping to create it. 

To get started, leaders must act now to uncover talent and refocus it outward towards markets and customers: to recommit to study and learn, hands on, and to act quickly. Consider it as the way to kill the culture of can’t, and replace it with: 

• “We will explore a new market, because we our people have great ideas that will help propel it.”

• “We will launch a new technology, because our people have the talent to show why it will be better.”

• “We will find a new customer, because we know we can help them.”

• “We will upgrade our product line, because we can make it better than the old product line.”

• “We must consider new business models, because the old one is on life support.”