Last Friday, I had the opportunity to spend some time with the owners and managers of a large real estate company in the Northwest.  I enjoy these meetings because it gives me an opportunity to see and hear the realities of the business challenges many of you are facing.

The message I heard on Friday…the real estate world is changing quickly and there is a constant need to evaluate and plot a course to meet the changes.  As leaders struggle with this issue, our first inclination is to focus on surface issues (i.e. How do my circumstances today resemble something that happened in the past?).  But by doing this, there is a tendency to overlook the core issues that are responsible for the changes.

I touched on this topic last week.  How do you first find the “horizon” in your recruiting world and then work on developing tactics that meet reality?  As you ask yourself this question and wrestle with the answers, you may find that your “reality” is much different than you expected and even more troublesome to understand.

I ran across a discussion by John Sumser over the weekend that does a great job of illustrating one of these fundamental changes.  The topic is the traditional understanding of a population pyramid.

“I am going to stick with the pyramid idea just a little longer.  The theme is so embedded in our world view that it shapes the way we see, imagine and execute our possibilities.

The ‘Recruiting Funnel', where masses of candidates are winnowed down to a select few, is an example of pyramid theory.  The whole notion emerges from the longstanding shape of families and governments:  a few old people running things, lots of younger people ‘being run’.  It’s mommy, daddy, and five kids.  It’s the foundation of hierarchical management.  Large organizations, with their single point (winnowing) authority, perpetuate the view that pyramids are essential elements of society.

The reality is that family structure has changed.  One or two kids and two parents is not an organization that can be run hierarchically.  Combined with technology that is flattening our organizations, we’re in a transition period.  The pyramid is built into our perceptual framework and it’s outmoded.

Historically, economic growth depends on a pyramid structure.  More people, more work, more jobs, more goods.  We have no idea how to engineer growth without an underlying impetus of population expansion.”

So, John’s point is that the disruption of the traditional population pyramid changes everything.  It is a fundamental issue that must be understood in order to build successful recruiting strategies (or to run a government, or to market a college, or to build a restaurant clientele, etc.).  If you were to make plans without understanding this important piece of information, you'd struggle to be successful. 

I brought this example up to get you thinking about the fundamental issues that may be shaping your business.  Of course, population dynamics affect everyone, but many other important issues are industry specific. 

What are the foundational issues that have changed in your profession, industry, and community?  The companies that can successfully identify these issues and deploy tactics that address these changes are the ones who will find themselves significantly ahead of their competitors in the coming years.

Editor's Note: This article was written by Ben Hess. Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.