Speaking at the recent Teagasc Nursery Stock conference, horticultural business consultant Neville Stein urged growers to focus on creativity and innovation. In this feature Neville expands on his presentation, arguing that upcoming challenges present an opportunity
Very probably like me, you have no clear understanding of what to expect when the UK leaves the European Union. If you do, then do please tell.
I’m sure your insights will help bring some much-needed peace of mind to the nursery stock sector in Ireland and the UK, which currently seems characterised by uncertainty.
In reflecting on the uncertainty we all face, my mind was drawn to an acronym which adequately describes the times we live in. VUCA – short for volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous – certainly seems an apt description for our current joint predicament. But realistically haven’t we always lived in VUCA times? The great philosopher Herodotus wisely stated that “change is the only constant”, and as I look back over the last five decades of my life I can recall many national and global events that caused change and uncertainty. Events like the winter of discontent in 1973, the Falklands war, poll tax riots and four economic recessions have rocked recent decades along with global issues of climate change, regime changes, and terrorism. The only constant thing really is change.
Individually perhaps we have very little influence of those factors that cause a VUCA world. However, if we run a business we can survive, prosper and make a VUCA world work for us. How? Very simply by creating an innovation culture. When times are good and profits are rolling in I often find that businesses can get complacent; things can be easy, so why strive harder to make the business better? But when the business environment becomes extremely challenging, there is a need to find better ways to do things and those companies that have created an innovation culture will be those that not only survive but typically prosper. Because in difficult economic times your return on investment could be higher, your factors of production become cheaper, and you can gain market share. Typically, I also find that smaller enterprises are able to adapt to difficult times much quicker than larger organisations. Often in larger companies the decision-making process is slower and getting things done can be pretty time-consuming. On the other hand, the owners of smaller organisations can often take quick decisions enabling them to respond promptly to a dynamic business environment. If we believe that a VUCA world can enable us to prosper by being more innovative, how do we develop an innovation culture in our own organisations?
My advice, first of all, is to explore innovation in those areas that are not obvious. Most innovation in our sector is market facing. In other words, we do a great job at innovating new plants and packaging. For example, take the egg and chips plant from Thompson & Morgan, a unique combination of aubergine grafted to potato, but we don’t often look to innovate in our business processes or our business strategy – the overall approach that we take to running our businesses.
| Secondly, be dissatisfied with the status quo. Challenge the way you do everything and make sure that nothing is off limits, challenge even those sacred cows that exist in every business. Likewise, look for what’s missing in your organisation. The best way to do this is to visit other producers. But don’t just stick to visiting those in the same area of production, for example, visit those in the fresh produce area too. You can learn a lot from how they are using mechanisation, software and innovative practices to drive efficiencies.
Thirdly, if you really want to create an innovation culture in your business you need to develop a blame-free culture. In the course of operating your business, you and your staff will make mistakes. Treat those mistakes as an opportunity to innovate. After all, a mistake might just lead you to a new way of doing things. Encourage your staff to be imaginative and take risks and let them fail because it’s through failure that we learn. But don’t just take my word here, read Matthew Syed’s excellent book, ‘Black Box Thinking’ which explores these concepts in more detail. Of course, if your staff does innovate and they save you a fortune make sure you reward them well. There are a variety of business tools available to you that will help facilitate the process of innovation within your organisation. Perhaps look at developing a lean production programme or indeed embrace continuous improvement as a method of developing a mindset that encourages continual innovation amongst your employees. In encouraging you to embrace innovation I am not disregarding or diminishing the challenges we may all face ahead. These are going to be difficult times, but those are better faced with creativity and a constructive mindset. Think about the current culture and ‘mindset’ in your business – how many processes are years old and unchallenged? To avoid stagnation we should be constantly reviewing the ‘what, how, and why’ of everything we do and be making full use of new products, systems and software. There will be upfront costs, but the rewards should far outweigh this. It is at times of greatest challenge where we need creative thinking and that thinking should lead to new innovations. To fully succeed in a VUCA world innovation will need to become a culture in your organisation, and one easy way to start this is by changing the language we automatically use. Change a ‘can’t’ to a ‘could’, a ‘no’ to a ‘maybe’, and a ‘why’ to a ‘why not’, then keep learning, keep challenging, and keep growing. ✽ |
 NEVILLE STEIN is managing partner of Ovation, a UK company providing business health checks, strategy planning, business planning and marketing consultancy to retailers, wholesalers and distributors. He has been a consultant since 1994 and also operates his own specialist retail business. He can be contacted on 0044 1394 385 723 or coach@ovationbusiness.co.uk |
