Stocks are down. Orders have been canceled or put on hold. Supply shipments are stalled. OR if you’re in the public health world, it’s all hands on deck and everything is “stat!” Either way, just as 2020 projects were gaining momentum, priorities changed.
The Wake Up Call – covid19
The rapid spread and resulting responses to the novel coronavirus, covid19, has highlighted both our global interdependence and our respective degrees of preparedness for the unexpected. As recently as a month ago, market analysts were proclaiming the strength of the economy and the unlikelihood of any foreseeable event disrupting the boom. Yet, here we are, in the wake of a market plunge with at least the near-term future uncertain as the news simultaneously reports containment of the disease in China allowing some factories to reopen while the number of cases in Europe and the Middle East is on the rise causing businesses there to close.
Predictable Responses to Uncertainty are often Counterproductive
In the face of such unexpected market disruption and uncertainty about the future, the predictable business responses are to batten down the hatches to weather the storm – Hiring and spending freezes combined with implicit or explicit warnings to lower expectations and prepare for scarcity. These are understandable survival responses in the face of such existential threats, but these actions can actually erode rather than enhance your organization’s capacity to weather not only this “storm,” but future shocks as well, which are certain to come sooner or later. So how can you deal with the immediate revenue impacts of the current crisis, prepare for an uncertain future, and build capacity at the same time?
Obviously, you need some emergency cash reserves, and the financial people in your organization likely have a number of tricks up their sleeve to move money around and to buy time with partners, suppliers, and creditors who are all likely dealing with the same challenges. Do whatever you can to avoid layoffs, though, because capacity building – reinvention – requires energy, trust, and people to do the creative collaboration that capacity-building requires. So what does that creative collaboration look like?
An Alternative Response that Increases Resilience
Three methodologies, used together, can help your organization – or even just a single department – not only deal with the current uncertainty, but come out stronger and better able to navigate future challenges.
- Failure Modes & Effects Analysis – an approach often used by engineers to anticipate disruption and estimate the risk as a basis for planning that begins with the simple question, what are all the ways “this” (product, current business model) could break? Or in the “reinvention” language currently being taught by Nadya Zhexembayeva, what could put us out of business in the next 3-5 years?
- Appreciative Inquiry – a strengths-based change leadership methodology that energizes a team, department, or entire organization by helping them identify and leverage their capabilities to design alternative futures (plural!) rather than becoming demoralized by the crisis-du-jour. This approach begins with some versions of the questions, “When was a time when we were at our best? What was it about that experience that made it so energizing? What could/would our future look like in 1 year, 3 years, 5 years if we built our team/department/organization to enable us to do more of what we’re great at? What actions will we need to take to make that possible?” This process can lead to new product, market, and marketing ideas; recognition of the need for new collaboration and partnerships both within and outside the organization; and most importantly, a sense of hope the excitement that comes from feeling like an agent of one’s future rather than a victim of one’s circumstances.
- Scenario Planning – Finally, scenario planning is a method for dealing with uncertainty by doing if-then planning (IF “failure mode #1” (price spike/crash; disease; war) occurs, THEN we will. This allows the team/department/organization to proactively match the prospective futures identified through the Appreciative Inquiry with the various disruptive possibilities identified in the Failure Modes exercise.
Books have been written on each of these methods, and as with anything, there are levels of expertise and nuance to employing them, but they can also be used today by any organizational leader using the limited descriptions I’ve included here. I also like them because they don’t prescribe a solution that may only work when certain conditions prevail but rather provide an approach (process) that leaders can use to both deal with the crisis at hand and to build capacity for a more resilient future.
Start today. Your employees are vessels of brilliance (yes, all of them; even the ones you least believe in!) who can help you through this crisis, and your engaging them as partners will do more for “employee engagement” than almost any other initiative that might have been on your roadmap.
Good luck! As always, feel free to contact us if you think we might be able to help: [email protected] | 512.387.2756.
