When Pivoting is Limiting

The word pivot, in a business sense, has been around for some years now.  It was, perhaps, management consulting jargon that became one of the most popular and over-used words of the 2020 pandemic.  Businesses were busy pivoting to online, virtual, takeaway, or click and collect, as normal operations were impacted by the external force that was COVID-19.
 
Having been involved in an apparent business pivot a few years ago, it is clear to me that the pivot, as a metaphor for change, has its limits and as we navigate our way out of the pandemic, leaders should be aware of these limitations in order to better manage and communicate change.

What is a pivot?
The dictionary describes a pivot as “the central point, pin, or shaft on which a mechanism turns or oscillates.”  Pivoting describes the rotation of the mechanism about that fixed point – think of the dial on a game of Twister.  Unless limited in some way, the body can move between zero and 360°, depending on the amount of external force applied to it.  In the case of our twister dial, the direction of the pointer changes depending on how hard you spin it.   

The needle stays on the fixed point but rotates left or right due to the force applied by your finger.  (Disclaimer – this is an electrical engineer’s description!)
As a business metaphor in 2020, so far so good.  COVID-19 applied a hefty external force to many businesses causing them to change direction – perhaps a little, perhaps a lot.  It had to happen quickly and was largely reactive.  For some it was successful, for some it was not.
 
Pivot Limit 1 – Pivoting is Reactive
 
Whilst the pandemic was unexpected, particularly in the breadth and depth of its impacts, and forced many businesses to change their operations, it can also be argued that in some cases it accelerated changes that were already taking place. For example, retail businesses with a strong online presence were able to adjust more quickly and easily to the lockdowns that prevented customers going to shops.  We may not have been able to predict the pandemic, but a shift towards shopping online had been growing for many years. 
 
Businesses that operate in a more reactive mode can quickly become left behind by their competition or become irrelevant.  Waiting to see what happens next in 2021, to determine the next pivot, is clearly not an option.  Now is the time to take proactive action that creates business and economic growth as we gradually and eventually find a way out of the pandemic.
 
Which leads us to the second limitation…
 
Pivot Limit 2 – Rotation is not Enough
 
Strictly speaking, pivoting is purely rotational, so businesses that continue to just pivot run the risk of facing backwards, or eventually arrive back at their starting point, gracefully pirouetting on the spot and into a death spiral.
 
Pivoting without creating forward motion is just spinning your wheels, which means we must consider moving the pivot point as well.  Whether it’s COVID-19, industry disruptors, or technology changes, we must read the play, anticipate customer needs and move to that point ahead of the pack. 
 
Businesses must be more agile, more flexible, and better at reading customer needs than ever before.  If you’re not doing this already, 2021 might need to be the year you shift and pivot.  It’s not enough to turn and face in a different direction, you must proactively move there as well.  In the case of Twister: left foot, red circle – but damn, it’s already occupied…
 
And so, we find another limitation in the metaphor.
 
Pivot Limit 3 – “It’s just a small shift, it won’t hurt…”
 
Pivoting tends to be used in the context of small changes in direction and so businesses often mistakenly overlook the impacts on people.
 
Have you ever heard this before? 
 
“We’re just pivoting, it’s a small shift from business as usual, we are not making wholesale changes…” 
 
In other words, this won’t hurt a bit, there’s nothing to see here. 
 
And the alarm bells start to ring!
 
Small changes can signal the start of more changes, bigger changes, and lasting changes.  Even if this isn’t the intention, your team members are likely be fearing the worst.  Ignoring or overlooking the human elements – the emotional elements – that are associated with any change, particularly during times of such high uncertainty, has the potential to doom your best intentions to failure.
 
As a leader, your role is not only to execute the shift and pivot, but to assist your team to navigate the change and willingly follow you there.
 
What can we conclude?
 
Pivoting may have been a useful, if overused, metaphor for navigating 2020 under the external force of COVID-19, but it is a reactive and unsustainable view of operating a business moving forward.
 
Successful businesses will read the play, understand their customers deeply, expect and anticipate change to proactively shift their position ahead of time. This requires a culture of innovation and a human centred approach to both customers and employees.
 
Finally, leaders must recognise that every change has impacts on people, both rational and emotional.  If you are not managing the human elements of change, shifting and pivoting will at best take longer and be more painful, and at worst will sabotage your initiatives completely.
 
For ideas on taking a human centred approach to innovation and leading change, contact Engineering Leaders to discuss how ExperienceInnovation and ExperienceChange can help you.