John Lamy: Steve and I are working on The Globally Conscious Leader®. And we’re going to have guys like you come in and be mentors. Not knowing much about who these people are, and we don’t yet know who they are, what would be a thing that you would just love to work with them on some subject, some message, something you’d like to explore with them.
Alex Lauver: I think of three sort of concepts that I’m trying to distill out from – though I guess it is the opposite of distilling – I’m trying to pull out from my industry and specific things to those broader – you said something earlier about process; you take what you do in one industry and turn it into the process, the mindset, the decision making matrix, and then apply that in other places.
And that is innovation and human centered design and it’s finest. The three things that come to mind for me, I guess, would be thinking through sustainability at the elemental level of, “I know I need to do something with my company, but I don’t know where to get started.” I’d have to think about how to pull that back and come up with some framework to help with people that I have a lot of experience with that, because that’s what we just went through. It is eye opening, and it is a mindset that you need to make decisions for.
So I think I could put something together along those lines – thinking innovatively and discussing how we’re – not that we’re awesome and that I’m some sage wise expert – but thinking about transformations in your business to be more innovative would be something that I could come up with.
And then the last one that really sings home for me too – and Steve and I talked about this for quite a while on the first call – is sort of the way I approach almost all these challenges quite honestly. And in terms of pushing your business forward and enacting change within your business, it relies on relationships.
And in order for you to enact change or to – internally or externally, it doesn’t matter – you will have to look at every interaction with your staff, with your customers and with your middle people, whether that’s your supply chain or your wholesale accounts, et cetera, no matter what your business model is, you can’t turn that Titanic overnight and you’re going to face challenges.
So you need to be thinking about each of those interactions as part of your interpersonal capital to say, “I’m going to tell you something you’re not going to like. But because we’ve developed a relationship over the last 10 months and you trust me, and you feel like I’m being open and I’m a high-integrity and honest person, you know that when I tell you this thing that you’re not gonna like, we’re gonna have a discussion about it. And I’m seeking your feedback and your buy-in on what needs to happen for the reasons we’ve outlined.”
