The reason most businesses experience the current global situation as a crisis is because they do not have a well-rehearsed method for dealing with multiple changes. Yet, once leaders understand that strategy and action must be an integral part of a corporate culture, it becomes clear how to steer the ship towards a vision regardless of a turbulent environment.

Let’s use the current global crises as an opportunity to:

• Grow by learning from the best companies that are thriving in difficult times.
• Change by identifying harmful paradigms and breaking them down with zero tolerance.
• Strategize by making vision and strategy practical every day.

There are two types of companies: Traditional and Lean and the gap is widening.

In order to thrive as a business, you have to ensure you do not make the common mistakes others are making:

• Lack of will: It is a clear indicator that a business might not survive a storm when the leadership is not eager and determined to improve.
• Lack of clarity: Managers holding opposing views of what has to be done, and how it should be implemented as it leads to unclear objectives, actions, budgets and resource allocation. Therefore, turning strategy into action in an efficient and effective way is hugely important.
• Lack of preparation: Few successful companies find themselves at the right opportunity at the right time, hence, a company cannot succeed again and again by accident. You have to be well-prepared.

In recent years, Brand ID embarked on a journey to develop the will and clarity to succeed in difficult markets. Juha Heljakka, CEO of Brand ID, tripled turnover from 2017 to 2022 with his company, and now feels prepared for any challenge that might surface: “Look at our type of business – printing, an industry struggling with steadily declining revenues. We found that consciously developing our way of working is key to success and simply the way that we grow.”

Caption: Juha Heljakka, CEO of Brand ID

Today, Heljakka sees his encounter with KAIZEN™ as the starting point for developing leadership and culture within Brand ID. “Companies that don’t step back to re-think are in a trap. We learned to escape this hamster wheel, and now focus on moving forward each day so that we can act fast in every new situation.” To be permanently alert, to communicate regularly with customers, keeping them informed, to always consider the output in relation to the necessary input, keeps Jukka Heljakka motivated.

Practising leadership principles also determines whether a company deteriorates or grows, regardless of challenges such as inflation or material price increases. “For us, such issues are not negative, they are just a topic in general that we process in our operating system that follows the core idea: focus on customer needs and the value that we are providing to customers”, says Heljakka.

The reason so many companies struggle with the will, clarity, and preparedness of their work system, is because they focus more on their shareholders than on their customers. This self-centred approach results in lack of growth in the current economic situation.

Interested in reading why getting a company's top management to live the idea of improvement can be a meaningful first step to initiating change for success? Watch out for the next blog post to be published on Thursday, December 15th!