An Often Invisible Trend Impacting All Business

I recently attended the National Speakers Association mid-year conference and heard an extraordinary speaker, Dr. Nadya Zhexembayeva. Originally from Russia, she now lives in New York City and founded Reinvention Academy. Her mission is to provide 1 billion people with reinvention skills and teach resilience techniques that will help people and businesses “ride waves of change rather than get crushed by them.”

In this amazing presentation, Zhexembayeva shared several trends impacting business. While her comments were focused on professional keynote speakers, these trends could affect any type of business. I was especially intrigued by the first trend, which is the focus of this article. With that in mind, here it is along with my commentary:

Turbulence is here to stay. There is an old saying that the only thing that is constant is change. That is true, but turbulence is a different type of change. It comes from negative issues impacting our businesses. Consider the past three years, which have included a pandemic, supply chain issues, employment problems and a rocky economy. That’s not just change, that’s an incredible amount of turbulence.

Zhexembayeva started her presentation by asking the audience to guess how many economic recessions we’ve been through since 1988. I remember the dot.com issues that helped tank the stock market in the early 2000s. Then there was the recession in 2008–09. Most people guessed three or four. But Zhexembayeva shocked the audience with the actual number: 469.

Recessions happen throughout the world. The surprising fact is that many of those happening outside the U.S. impact us, and we don’t even realize it. For example, in Congo, there is an ongoing recession that was exacerbated by Covid-19. How can a recession in an African country impact the U.S.? One big product that is exported from Congo is cobalt, which is a key ingredient in many products we use, from cell phones to cars. This impacts prices, availability and more. A recession happening on the other side of the world can not only hurt companies in surrounding countries, but also hurt companies in the U.S. In some cases, it can even put a company out of business.

Companies must embrace all that comes their way: the good, the bad, and the turbulent. Consider the following research findings. According to the American Enterprise Institute, 88% of Fortune 500 companies operating in the past 60 years are gone. Innosight claims that 50% of companies in the S&P 500 will be gone by 2027—just four years from now! There’s plenty of turbulence and disruption, and the question is simple. Do you want to be disrupted or recognize the signs early enough to make the necessary changes to stay relevant and successful?

To prove this point, Zhexembayeva used a real estate company as an example. Pretend you’re the owner of apartment complexes. If you normally have 100% of your apartments rented, what percentage of vacant apartments (no renters) would alert you to a problem? In other words, when would you notice a negative trend? Is it 5%, 10%, 15% or more? How many months of vacancies before you realized there was a problem? Often, by the time you realize it, you have to go through a major reinvention, if it’s not already too late.

Change happens at exponential speed, and it goes both directions. This reminded me of an example from when I was in sixth grade. My math teacher, Mr. Fredrickson, asked the class if we were willing to put in a hard day of work for a penny. Nobody would take the bait. Then he offered to double the salary each day for 30 days. So, on the first day we would be paid a penny. On the second day we would be paid two pennies. On the third day, we would be paid four pennies, and so on. Still, nobody took the offer.

Nobody wanted to work under that arrangement until “Mr. Fred” showed us the math.

After 10 days of working under this formula, we would be paid $5.12 per day. Still a very small wage for 10 full days of work. However, on day 20, the daily salary would be … $5,232.88. And on the 30th day of the month … a really big number … $53,687,091.12!

The point is that change can happen fast. And as exciting as becoming a multi-millionaire with the one-penny-a-day example, it can go the opposite direction.

If you are down just 1% this week, 2% the following week and 4% the following week, it won’t take long before your business is a history lesson!

If you’ve been reading my weekly columns, you know that I focus on customer service and experience. So, what does this topic have to do with CX? It is conceivable that no matter how successful you are today, if your customer service and CX aren’t meeting your customers’ expectations, they will leave for the competition. At what point will you notice? And at what point will you realize it was because you didn’t deliver the experience that met your customers’ expectations? If you’re late in perceiving the trend, you may have to put forth a monumental effort to regain your market share.

So, what’s the answer? Reinvent yourself! But it’s not as easy as you might think. Zhexembayeva warns that according to BCG, 75% of all transformation efforts fail. We must be purposeful about changing, be smart about it and do it quickly! This is what resilience looks like in business: the ability to adapt and survive—and in some cases thrive.

So, watch your trends. Monitor the turbulence, not just in your business, not just in your industry, but in the overall economy, because there is a good chance you’re being impacted, even if on the surface you don’t think you are. And remember the power of customer service and CX that can help you ride the waves of change and retain your customer base, even through turbulent times.