The great thing about blogging on WordPress is that the statistics give you insight into which blogs were studs and which were duds. Over the past few months I have identified an ongoing trend on certain blogs and topics and what I have found is the following: social media, selling in a down economy, corporate culture, performance metrics and task saturation are blogs that trend well past their archive date. What is the common thread? I haven’t a clue. Just kidding.
One common thread is the recession. The blogs represent elements of what put us here in the first place (corporate culture and practice) and elements of survival/success in our current space (social media, productivity, sales strategy and work overload). Despite leading indicators such as the stock market, there are lagging indicators such as unemployment which offer conflicting messages on the reality of the market. Regardless of that, business goes on and companies are looking for the right ways to do business, improve performance and results and create barriers to failure by building a culture that employees can embrace.
If you dig deeper into the theme, it is also about the need for strong management capabilities and leadership during this time and going forward. There are a lot of unknowns and predicting the future isn’t easy right now–so managing through change may be a daily occurrence. If you approach the challenges with open communication, transparency, clear goals and increased involvement in decisions regarding change, you will benefit from commitment with a clear vision. As such, managing change may be one of the most important leadership qualifiers for businesses today.
