Leaders must challenge the status quo and take unconventional actions to drive extraordinary results. When you take unconventional actions in hopes of getting an extraordinary outcome, the responses are similar.As a leader, you must have the courage to take such steps—to be “barefoot”—so that you can do whatever is necessary to achieve your most audacious goals.

Breaking from the Norm to Drive Change

Leaders need to regularly assess their organization's current state across factors like operations, team capabilities, resources, culture and more. Understanding the gap between the present and future state enables leaders to craft data-driven strategies and plans to reach the next level. Rather than relying on assumptions, leaders should gather data through assessments, analysis, staff and customer surveys and more.

Assessing Where You Are and Where You Want to Be

When you take unconventional actions in hopes of getting an extraordinary outcome, the responses are similar. As a leader, you must have the courage to take such steps—to be “barefoot”—so that you can do whatever is necessary to achieve your most audacious goals.

Change management provides structures, processes and tools to help employees across an organization understand the need for change, embrace new ways of working and adopt change.Because humans are wired for certainty and habit, leading change requires thoughtful change management.Leaders must clearly communicate "the why" and alleviate concerns.Coaching, training and organizational alignment are key enablers.

Enabling Transformation via Change Management

<ul><li>Leaders should intentionally expose themselves to new environments, people, concepts and ways of thinking to spark creativity. Insular thinking within one company or industry inhibits innovation.</li><li>Leaders must diversify their information sources and experiences to strengthen imaginative muscles.</li></ul>

Seeking New Ideas and Innovation

When you feel discouraged, if you determine that you still want the result, you will achieve it as long as you keep taking steps in that direction. Trust the process." Breakthroughs take time

Customer motivations, values, challenges and desires continually evolve. Leaders must deeply understand target customers to create differentiated value propositions that evolve in line with emerging needs.This requires continuously gathering customer insights through surveys, interviews, advisory groups and journey mapping.

Understanding Evolving Customer Needs

<ul><li>In today's complex, dynamic environment, leaders should resist relying on intuition or past practices when making strategic decisions.</li><li>Decisions should be grounded in real-time assessments and data analytics that provide an objective view of realities and future probabilities leaders need to navigate uncertainty.</li><li>Data illuminates customer needs, competitive threats, market trends and more. </li><li>Leaders must create a culture and systems to democratize data, enable insight sharing and drive data-driven decision making across the organization.</li></ul>

Making Data-Driven Decisions

Leaders are only as effective as their teams. To successfully execute on strategy, leaders must ensure they have the right talent in the right roles. This requires an understanding of each team member's skills, work styles, strengths and development needs in relation to the skills and behaviors needed to drive strategy forward. Leaders may need to restructure teams or reposition team members to align with strategic objectives.

The Right Team to Execute the Strategy

With a vision defined and the right team in place, leaders need to create a detailed action plan that outlines exactly how the future state will be reached. This includes defining key activities, owners, milestones, resources required, risks and mitigation tactics. An accountability framework should outline metrics and key results each team and leader will be measured on to ensure alignment and motivation to execute the plan.

Crafting an Action Plan and Accountability Framework

Markets, technologies, competitors and customer preferences are continually evolving. Organizations must build a culture and capability to anticipate changes ahead of the curve and embrace them.Rather than reacting, leaders should proactively predict industry shifts using market analysis, competitive intelligence, customer insights and more.

Anticipating and Embracing Change

Barefoot in the Boardroom is a book written by Shara Hutchinson, published in August 2, 2022. It is a guide for business professionals on how to expand their leadership skills and optimize their talents. The book provides techniques and methods on how to assess one's leadership capacity, create change and transformation, lead with authenticity, and develop a successful career.

Barefoot in the Boardroom is a practical change management manual for executives looking for a proven methodology that can break down a huge vision into manageable chunks. Certified as a Change Management Practitioner and Talent Optimization Consultant, Shara Hutchinson demonstrates how to assess one’s leadership capacity, change impact, and organizational health and reveals the strategies and tactics necessary to achieve a leader’s most audacious goals. By following Shara’s proactive measures and techniques outlined in this book, business professionals will expand their leadership skills while simultaneously encouraging the growth of others. Barefoot in the Boardroom will scale an organization, team, or department to not only identify the right strategic initiatives but to execute those initiatives and sustain success.Within Barefoot in the Boardroom, business leaders will find a vast array of proven techniques and strategies to apply. Shara Hutchinson’s “Exposeyour™” Leadership Capacity approach includes the nine leadership competencies needed to develop a high-performing team, while her encouragement of vision teaches leaders how to align their business strategy with their team, ensuring that they have the right people in the right seats to get the right results. Shara also introduces the “Barefoot Method™”—which is her signature change management strategy that can be applied to any organization, team, or department to ensure it is future-proofed. Barefoot in the Boardroom will challenge business professionals to break out of the box and innovate with the times. Each chapter offers clarity for strategic initiatives, key objectives, operational tactics, and measurable outcomes that encourages leaders to implement change and innovation in order to sustain professional longevity.

SHARA HUTCHINSON

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