Introducing the Power Pivot
If you’ve been following us, you’ll notice that our newsletter has a new name – The Business of Being Human. This is what we call a Power Pivot – something that we are intentionally changing to align with the most powerful part of who we are.
We know that as leaders and managers in companies, you face decisions that require you to pivot all the time. While our name change may seem like a tiny pivot – essentially a rebranding of our newsletter – each pivot we make brings up new energy, new momentum, and new possibilities… new power in our team and our market.
What makes a pivot powerful?
A pivot is changing an aspect of what you do. A power pivot is focusing on a “new” perspective of what you do, while maintaining stability in other areas. This stability provides the foundation for the change to happen without chaos or confusion arising. For our clients, this may look like changing your product based on market research, updating your company values to better align with your vision or a change to the industry or sector that you serve.
In fact, Intune Collective is pivoting from coaching, consulting, and training for any sized company, to applying these capabilities to helping funded startups through mid-sized sustainability-minded companies. We help our clients hone and elevate their team dynamics and embed their values throughout their work. We are using the same tools and frameworks that we have always used to design client experiences; and we’re doubling down on what we’re hearing organizations need most now: team cohesion, alignment, ability to lead with empathy while creating a culture of belonging, being resilient in the face of ambiguity, and clarity on mission, vision, and values.
Examples of pivoting your business
Let’s talk about how you might pivot when the time comes. Here are a couple ideas:
Aligning your external and internal brand, ie. “walking your talk”
With any new strategic focus, or leadership change, you’ll come to realize that your visual brand will also need an update. By taking time to update your mission, vision, and values with your growing and evolving leadership team, your visual brand can also be realigned to reflect who you are as an organizational culture. When things “click” there is an uplift in energy, engagement, and enthusiasm.
Changing your value proposition
Intune has focused on team retreats and offsites, which we still do, but realized that our true value proposition was unlocking the collaboration and engagement of executive and senior management teams. We champion the innate power of curiosity and connection within each person by helping teams create the conditions for healthy, healing, and sustaining team dynamics.
This is often referred to as changing our value proposition, or the value that we affect with clients, even though actual things we are doing remain the same.
When (and how) should you pivot?
Most often, you’ll consider a pivot when what you’re doing now isn’t working. But here’s the problem – it’s hard for you to see yourself in ways that others might see you. And in a world where customers and employees can tell when things are off, their impressions matter more than ever. Here’s how you can assess pivots for your organization:
Get an outside opinion
Ask others what they see. A recent founder we met says that he regularly meets with folks outside his business. He values these people because he knows that they will tell him what they really see in his business. Talking to past clients is also helpful to continuing to learn and grow. If you ever want a fresh perspective, we’d be happy to tell you what we see.
If you’re stuck, ask me. I’d be happy to tell you what I see.
Test before you pivot
Once you’ve decided that you need to pivot, you will come up with a long list of things that need to happen. Test out your new product, positioning, or approach with a handful of clients or customers first. Take to heart what you learn through this early part of the process and use what you learn to make the product or process even better. As executive leadership coach Marshall Goldsmith says, “what got you here won’t get you there” so make sure you’re using new skills, mindsets, and perspectives to move forward when you pivot.
Why we changed the name of this newsletter
The original name of this newsletter was Intune Insider. It was inspired by other newsletters that appealed to corporate clients. And it was OK – until we realized that the true message we wanted to convey was that we are in the business of being human.
Yes, we work with corporate clients, but no, we most definitely don’t have a corporate culture. We want to show what’s possible when we make decisions and execute strategy with the belief that people matter and that we can build a company based on connection, great communication, grace, compassion, and all in all, human relationships that allow us to do great work. Given that our podcast is already called The Business of Being Human, we decided to double down and rename our newsletter the same way.
