Either you drive disruption or you’re outpaced by it.
Porsche – Auto Company
I give lots of professional talks. I ask attendees: “how many of you know your company’s business model?” Less than 10% do. Why does it matter if you know your customer’s or employer’s work model? It may follow the Handy model or a variant.
VUCANs can tell me what they do and what department they’re in. But, they don’t know the company’s, business unit, or department’s business model. These Handy workers (middle and outer rings) are expendable if there’s an economic blip.
Why is this question important? Well, your customer’s or employer’s business model defines your work model. It tells you where you’re in the food chain, value stream, and value hierarchy. Knowing where you are, you make choices based on your risk profile. Questions to ask your include:
- Is your company going to be around next year and five years?
- Are you or your processpart of your organization’s inner, middle, or outer rings (Handy model).
- If your processis not part of the organizational core, then what’s the chance it will be outsourced?
- If you’re a middle manager, what does the organization want to do with your department or activities?
- If you’re a middle ring VUCAN, a projectconsultant, what’s critical to your customer?
- What skills are critical to your customer and what’s it willing to pay for them?
- What other key questions should you ask?
Work Lesson Earned: If you don’t know your company’s business model, you don’t know how the company’s makes money and you don’t know how to add value to the core. If you don’t know how to add value, make sure you’re not ultimately expendable. Sorry, about the bad news. However, that’s the way it is.