(Source: Klook.com)
You can take the Finnish Polar Explorer icebreaker tour for €360 (USD 388) on a glory touristy day. It will sail out of the majesty Axelsvik’s island-harbor in Sweden and position you into the chilly winds, floating to inhabitable places and spaces. You get a 3h guided tour and can enjoy a frosty swim in survival suits.
It’s not only cool to do, but also important as an eye-opener and to learn (I felt very little!).
Icebreakers are fascinating. They need three key elements that allow them to do their work. (1) A strengthened hull, (2) an ice-clearing shape , and (3) sufficient power to create momentum that will flex the ice. That momentum then spreads, clearing space.
It may be unnatural for icebreakers to venture into other beings’ territory, but this ‘imposter’ behavior has several benefits. We learn better how things work in new environments. And how they change. Plus, which changes are not desirable for all of us. So new perspectives help us question ourselves. Constructively.
A good icebreaker blends in well with its environment. It must. Or there will be too much push-back. It will be rejected. And nobody gains.
So, while intrusive, uncomfortable and cold, icebreakers help break ground by smashing the ice. And enable many secondary beneficiary changes. For all. That involves hard skills, technology, and soft approaches.
It’s no different in the airline industry. Oftentimes, new people or people in new areas are made to feel like imposters. Because it’s not popular (see article). This is driven by many emotional systems that are triggered when ‘not from here’ people have constructive suggestions to move things along. Or radically change.
So how do we work with imposters that we make out to feel like imposters so they make us look better?
Read on or join here:
Thickening ice
In normal circumstances, ice tends to thicken over time. In companies, people (subconsciously) lay ice by connecting with like-minded peers around established processes. And that becomes habitual.
Habits and beliefs are harder to change than tangible things, like a software you use. Brains are also malleable (“plasticity”) that way, in that they learn pathways (hence: “pathological”), which are harder to de-learn.
If somebody with new energy and persistence comes along, this is what I observed in companies where new people and new approaches were fundamentally different [often in a bigger picture]:
Newcomers are often shooed as “wannabe’s” (do you know what they want to be, though?)
New vendors were painted as incompetent imposters, too. Like IBS. And that’s now 25 years ago for a top leading travel, transportation, and logistics software house. Go IBS!
New vendors are brushed off by existing suppliers because they don’t feel like waking up sleeping dogs, i.e., the potential need to invest in their products (at least buy time).
New companies were acquired as soon as they sign up customers to slow down the curve and enable breathing space to catch up. (There are some recent RM and PSS cases).
This happens not because people do not believe that what they propose is unworthy, but for fear of them becoming (too) successful. And what that means for one’s own security and sense of self.
It’s always personal. It’s never “just competition”.
It even exists in company cultures. Like companies that promote the idea that they have no competition, are unique, and have a monopoly position (I worked with such a vendor but they were also a clique).
This works until the whole approach is challenged because technologies in other disciplines expose severe deficiencies, like RM (see article). Because of a much bigger picture with a wider and deeper scope that technology can deliver at Enterprise level (see article).
Breaking ground and using icebreakers takes a lot of dedication and time. For airlines and vendors as well.
Vending machines
We now have used three main generations of software delivery technologies (mainframe, SaaS, cloud). That’s a snapshot in overall computing history. But a very significant one, and those that are old enough to have been through all three are those that want to slow down the most.
So, when further changes are proposed and you feel threatened, it is important to find an angle so that changes will bring wins for others before they boomerang to you.
The typical things to do:
Get out of the technical, deep specialist, operational roles
Upskill to see the bigger picture, and seek novel training
Identify which aspects of your former roles could be improved in more harmonized workflows (e.g. adtech and salestech on top of RM)
Build bridges by talking about how people can share more across silos
Create mini-labs and ask for permission to experiment
(use your own time if needed)Make your boss interested in how these ideas can help their advancement
Keep focusing on how people work, want to work and find purpose, not routine.
Companies like Deloitte, Infosys, Dataiku, Kyte, Travel in Motion, Retailaer, AirGateway, and Aeroclass fulfil roles like this between companies.
They are the glue.
They break ground by smashing ice, and bring people together to improve airline and travel industry patterns. These patterns will, in time, unleash other imposter ideas and conversations that will also be icebreakers.
So, be an imposter. Nobody can know or perfect what has never be done, so don’t submit to interpersonal games or get trapped into the 7 categories of naysayers.
Learn from others. Experiment to fail, by making failed attempts a quasi-goal, like 2 to 9 out of 10 should become lessons learned.
Breaking ice is about personalities, people skills, and sometimes asking for forgiveness instead of permission. But it will always lead to some ground breaking elsewhere. Through icebreaking conversations with connected people.
1 out of 10 is likely a great One.
All rights reserved © Ricardo V. Pilon 2023
Wishing you all a wonderful day, and greetings from icy Québec.
Ricardo
Montreal, Tuesday 24 January 2023
Feel free to contact me for questions, comments, or a chat:
ricardo(dot)pilon(at)millavia(dot)com, or for startup and VC assistance;
ricardo(at)pomonaworld(dot)com