I know you’ve heard a lot of talk about organizations and people facing up to the “new normal”, of business’ having to pivot and transact differently. You’ll have also seen a host of articles referencing digital transformation and business’ no longer having the luxury of not considering some form of digital transformation in order to accommodate the new paradigm shift.
As a leader, your head maybe spinning because lets be honest you’ve been focused on keeping your business operational, employees and customers safe, delivering on health and safety protocols as well as ensuring you and your family remain symptom free.
There’s no doubt that the world as we know it will not return to the way it was;
- The business landscape has changed for many industries.
- Experts are predicting a drawn out global recession.
- As leader, you may have taken certain actions you would have never considered before to ensure your business remained afloat but now your customers have seen what you can do when the proverbial hit the fan. They like it and they want it to remain – that wasn’t in the plan!
- Your employees now have different expectations around the way they work – those that successfully completed their jobs remotely, will question why that will not be able to continue going forward.
- Not just that, with 1 in 5 battling mental health issues before COVID at some point, it’s projected that we’ll see a significant increase in the number of persons impacted. Employee assistance programs won’t be enough and neither is it the preserve of HR. This requires empathy of leadership. Managers will need to pivot to be more inclusive as leaders.
- And last but not least – YOU the leader may no longer wish for things to work the way they did.
Calling the change process organizations are now faced with a “pivot”, is diminishing the scale of what lies ahead for them – this is survival transformation, for unprecedented times.
For many leaders it will be more than that – it will be a mindset change and right now I bet you can’t think straight!
So before we talk about transformation, recovery, pivoting, reinvention, reset etc. whatever you wish to call it, there are foundational questions, which if you can successfully answer will positively steer you and your organization through this critical period;
- What does success look like you, for your organization now?
- Do you have the talent and resources available to deliver that success? What new skill sets do you need?
- Are your key processes protected e.g sales, collections, payment, customer service….?
- How can you bring your business to your customer?
- Do you know what your customer wants from your business?
- How do you personally have to change to take your organization successfully through Plan A?
- Are you clear on what your employees expect of the organization, of you?
If you can answer these seven questions, you’re off to a great start.
Need help defining your answers? Contact me, I’m helping leaders and organizations just like you to create their future bounceback plans and develop the mindset changes in order to deliver success. Send me a message at [email protected], I’m happy to chat about how I can support you or someone on your team.
Janice Sutherland is an award winning women’s leadership expert and founder of This Woman Can an online community for professional women. She provides coaching and training specializing in helping women and organizations build leadership skills through Executive Mentorship, Leadership Training and Executive Team Facilitation for both corporate executives and entrepreneurs globally. She is a sought after keynote presenter for corporate and nonprofit environments and speaks on issues relating to leadership, women’s advancement, professional success and work/life alignment. For more details, visit www.janicesutherland.com