After years of exciting progress and when least expected, the world got a blue screen and collapsed before the first global pandemic of modern times: COVID-19.
Article by Patrícia Fernandes | Reading time 11 minutes
Like with any regular blue screen on a PC, the step that follows is its reset. But how can we do this? What's the right path to follow: shall we remove every file and start from scratch, or should we keep our files and move on with it? The answer depends on how we look at the future ahead and how much we want to and how badly we need to change our organizations' course of action and our teams.
I don't believe in pure resets that erase everything. Our actions, decisions, and choices are continuously influenced by the set of experiences and learnings we collect in our lives. The deeper and richer these experiences, the better and more complete professionals and leaders we become. Therefore, I'd like to share the ten ideas that I gathered, as a leader, to share with my team, hoping that this will guide and inspire them in the reset that we need to perform during the months to come until we leave the current challenging times behind. This is crucial because the world has changed dramatically and for the worse in most senses. With the fast forward that the lockdown imposed on us, nothing will ever be as strict as we were used to in the "good old normal."
1. Purpose
It has never been more critical to find our organization's purpose and to find it in all that we do. To discover or revisit this purpose, the best is to "Start with Why" as Simon Sinek writes. It's not what we do and how we do it that is most important – that does not differentiate us from our competition. The real challenge and what makes us and our value proposition unique is why we do it. Our why is, ultimately, what can inspire and propel us to act and be successful in all we do.
2. Resilience
After the waves of shock caused by the pandemic and its painful impact on people's health and living standards, we must realize that it's not the strongest that survive, but the more resilient. Resilience prepares us to overcome future challenges, helps us adapt to adverse circumstances, manage stress, and keep motivated. It is resilience that allows us to set the pace to reconstruct our lives, our teams, and our organizations after this earthquake.
3. Thinking before Acting
Like never before should we think more deeply before taking action. The constant volatility, change, uncertainty, and ambiguity of the new order, which is less of order and more of chaos, demands reflection. Is this the right strategy? Are we moving in the right direction? Do we have all that it takes to win in such a changeable market? Will our customers be delighted with our actions/offer? Current times are tough, therefore foolish and improper actions will undoubtedly be punished, as they can result from the inadequate time invested in listening, analyzing, and reflecting on what's best for others.
4. Empathy
Reflection requires empathy with customers, partners, employees, and every single stakeholder of any organization. Empathy requires humility to take-off our prejudices, our pre-conceived ideas, our assumed thoughts of what others want, to listen actively, to study the trends, to change behaviors profoundly, and to introduce the right approaches and value propositions.
5. Courage
Decisions require courage. Do we have the right culture? Are we doing enough to please those around us? Do we have the right resources to accomplish what we plan and aim for? Do we have the right strategy to fulfill our purpose? Are our actions in alignment with that purpose? Are we acting out our promises? Are we ready to introduce change, if it is required to correct what we are not doing well?
These are powerful questions that, if correctly reflected upon and answered, should take us out of our comfort zones, because like someone once said, "a comfort zone is a beautiful place, but nothing ever grows there". This also means that we must accept failure and allow our people to fail because no progress comes without flaws. And it takes courage to do it.
6. Growth Mindset
This one I took from Carol Dwell some years ago, and it's one of my favorites. To be successful, all previous ideas need to be processed using a kind of mindset that sees opportunities and evolution where others see obstacles and drawbacks. Mistakes are allowed because they are a precious source of learning. "Make the difference, think farther than common sense" is the motto of this mindset that also paves the way to innovation. People who train their brains to work in growth mindset mode do what Seth Godin says: "if it scares you, it might be a good thing to try".
7. Innovation
Leveraging on a Growth Mindset, there's no other way than to innovate. Innovation is the perfect source of change. It allows people and organizations to unfollow commonality and run away from thinking and acting average. Innovation enables organizations to take quantum leaps and stay ahead of their competitors and to win customers' and users' hearts and minds. This means that as George Bernard Shaw states: "You see things and you say 'why?'. But I dream things that never were, and I say, 'why not'?".
8. Communication
Any idea is only a good idea if others perceive it as good and meaningful. It implies that we need to clearly and correctly communicate ideas, strategies, tactics, and objectives that must be understood, bought in, and successfully implemented. Many of today's organizational mismatches and conflicts arise from blurred territories of responsibility among different areas. Still, the most severe collaboration barriers come from the misuse of communication.
9. Inspiration
This one is another of my favorites as a leader. In tough times like the one we're going through, when organizations are restructuring, downsizing, losing weight, or going through any other adjustment plan, inspiration is what stands; it's our north pole. It is the food for thought and action, it is what keeps people going, and it is the best and most dependable source of motivation when everything else fails. Through inspiration and inspirational leaders, we can do miracles with our people, even the least motivated.
10. Happiness
One should never stop trying to be happy, especially in tough times. I believe in the importance of happiness at work. As a leader, I can't ensure my people are happy in all dimensions of their lives, namely the private ones. My job is to make sure I pave the way for happiness on the job by creating an ethical culture of respect, recognition, brainstorming, open door talks, emotionally intelligent management, and innovation prone actions. If I achieve this, my people will be inspired and motivated and give back to the company a lot more than we give them. And this helps to create a virtuous circle. When people work in jobs they love, and for people they admire, they see more opportunities arising; they see a better alignment with the things they care about. This is the best motivation source I can imagine, which ultimately leads to success.
I have no clue if a reset based on these ideas stands any chance of succeeding. But at least I will try them out. Let's see in the next two years what the outcomes are.
Nevertheless, I challenge you to look back at these ten ideas in a new way. Actually, they’re not new, they’ve been looked at and discussed way before this pandemic but in the new context we’re living in, they have definitely evolved and have captured new meanings. Never before has the focus on the human being, in its uniqueness and individuality, been so pivotal to the success of our organizations. To think this way about each of these ten ideas is certainly seeding a seed that will bear fruit.
