2020-04-16
Five Actions we can take to come out of hibernation stronger and more competitive than before.
Thank you
Our governments have done an extraordinary job and should be recognised for tackling this global pandemic for Australia on a range of fronts: ramping up our health care system, implementing community and border control measures to minimise cross infection, providing increased support for those out of work, creating an insurance policy for employers and employees to help them stay together if work dries up, ensuring that our young do not lose a safe years education, encouraging and supporting every person with a job that it is an essential activity they must do, safely, to protect our economy, creating an expectation that landlords, tenants and banks (big and small) work together to share the burden of this battle, and, so many more initiatives that many of us are probably unaware of.
This is the true leadership that we need in this time of crisis. Thank you!
Yet, with the restrictions created by social distancing, the JobSeeker, JobKeeper, and other business support programs in place, and an expectation that this crisis will impact our businesses and economy for at least six months to come, we are seeing some businesses hoarding cash, deferring/reducing expenditure, and showing fear for their future in these uncertain times.
This is understandable.
Sadly, many will lose their lives, their loved ones and their livelihoods through COVID-19. I feel deeply for all those affected.
But, it doesn’t mean that all of our businesses and economy must stop; unless we let it.
It doesn’t mean that we cannot come out of this crisis stronger; unless we choose it.
And, it doesn’t mean that opportunities to grasp and solve creatively are lost; unless we close our eyes to innovation.
We are all in this together.
And we must choose whether we will be the victims or the victors, of this pandemic.
The Five Actions are:
So, what actions can we take now to prepare to come out of this staged Lock-Down stronger, more vibrant and more sustainable? (Sadly, this is unlikely to be the last of its kind!)
1. Protect your Culture
Fight social isolation like your culture depends on it. IT DOES!
Firstly, for those of us who are, or have employees working from home, we must fight social isolation while we encourage social distancing. It is really vital that you continue to get through the work, supervise and support your staff and, maintain a sense of inclusive comradery.
Stay in touch:
- continue the morning huddles to start the day together with a common purpose and enthusiasm
- have coffee breaks or lunch together
- encourage the separation of work and home with exercise breaks before or after work (a walk around the block to/from work is a great way to do this. I still get up and suit up every morning even though my entire day might be on video conferences in my makeshift office – in bare feet😊). Adam Fraser has an excellent talk on the Third Space separating work from home
- Continue to have Friday night drinks, and celebrate all of your wins!!
Note that, this is totally green fields for all of us. After two weeks, check in with your team and see what is working and what is not, and then adjust. We clearly want to avoid burnout as everyone is experiencing the stresses of working from home, perhaps with kids or a noisy partner, and without the routines they are familiar with.
2. Assess your available resources.
Look hard at your customer demand and the likely impact it will have on the level of meaningful work you have for your staff. You and your staff may be stuck looking out only a week or a month, because things have changed so much – so fast. But look into to the middle distance. What is likely to be the state of the volume of work in 5 weeks, 9 weeks, 13 weeks. It may be fundamentally different again.
It’s possible, that activity will drop and for some parts of your business, there may be nothing available that some staff would normally do. Anticipate and plan for this now. For every team or employee, identify when that might likely happen, and how many will need to stand down or reduce to part time hours (by agreement).
This is your pool of vital resources to create a more sustainable future! If you are eligible for the JobKeeper program, you could either stand your staff down on $1500 per fortnight (before tax), or you can marshal their creativity, dedication and energy for those days per week, in a way that they can feel proud of their contribution to their future in the business, on the other side. We have seen with workplace injuries, that one of the most important things we can do is keep our team mates involved in the business if we are to help them feel valued and contributing as they recover.
I see this as no different. We have fantastic people working with us. Keep working together.
3. Identify opportunities to build a stronger more sustainable business.
Work with your leadership team to brainstorm. What are all the options to build the business of your dreams? Here are a few ideas:
A. Get your house in order
All of those things you’ve been wanting to improve in your business for ages are still there; waiting for you to have the time to attack them. Look at them and see if there are new ways of doing things. We didn’t think that 30% of employees would successfully be working from home and staying in touch via video conferencing within three weeks, back in February, did we? So, use this opportunity to challenge how you do things and how you can stop doing things. Do them simpler, better, faster, automated, or via your IT systems.
Imagine you were going to buy your business.
What needs to be in place to make it more attractive, successful, efficient, profitable, self-sufficient, and distinct from its competitors. Tackle them now so you can be proud to compete with other businesses, internationally.
This could range from:
- getting your back-office processes and records in order, digitised, revisit your workflows – what’s necessary and what’s not
- sharpening up the facilities, workshops, fleet and infrastructure
- sorting out your IT, your web-site, IT security, joining up that hodgepodge of applications, retiring all those spreadsheets that you never got around to building into dashboard, etc
- reviewing all of your suppliers; seeing who is and who isn’t supporting you now, and of course, weighing up whether off-shoring supply is your primary option if local alternatives may have helped you to-date – yes, it is a fine competitive survival balance
- look hard at how well you are meeting your customers’ needs and whether the relationship is solely based on price, or could it be strengthened with better relationships, reliability, collaboration, and relevance?
If you are wanting to look at your business functions methodically, use this tool to review each of the business functional areas and narrow down the #criticalfew issues to improve. HERE.
B. Innovation: Build what they want and need
Never has there been a better time to challenge what the market and your customers want and need. Look hard at what’s behind the products and services that they are seeking from you. How do your products and services fit into their supply chain? Are you a commodity or a solution? How can you make their lives or business process easier and more streamlined? What can you do to reduce the eight forms of waste in the business processes in your business and grow their profitability and sustainability? How can you become more deeply connected with their systems to improve both of your businesses? How can you get them involved in your innovation process? And how does this apply to the customers of today, and the customers you desire for your future?
Run innovation and creativity workshops and once you have identified some high potential options, run innovation sprints to really test whether they have merit.
C. Nurture and reinforce your desired strategic relationships
Now is the time to get really close to your customers and support them. If your workforce is available at less cost, this might be the time to share that resource with them and keep them busy. It is also a perfect time to trial new innovations with customers and share the risk and benefits. (This shouldn’t be an email / social media spray, but a one to one conversation with valued relationships.)
Whilst price and quality will always be a key buying criterion, how you behave now, who you supported and who supported you, will have a significant impact on customer relationships for years to come.
D. Contribute to your community
If your business is in tip top condition and your new products/services are ready to go, how can you apply your skills, your services, and your available workforce to help our health sector, our community sector, and our disadvantaged during this time. We are all in this together, so how can we help our fellow Australians during this time make life a little easier. There is nothing like helping another to help us feel we are making a difference.
4. Prioritise your activity and GO!
Once you have identified the key ideas to improve your business, relationships and community; prioritise them, and assess the resources that you need to bring them to fruition. Treat each like a valuable investment and tackle them systematically with purpose and gusto. Manage them as you would any investment.
5. Celebrate small and large wins.
All too often, we achieve something and rush on to the next. This is very much a time, when we need to pause and reflect on what has been achieved and celebrate it. Every step of the way.
We are all trying to make sense of our changed environment. We are all feeling that there are things happening that are outside our control. These small celebrations give us a tangible sense that we are making a difference and that we have a little control in this highly changeable environment.
Go Hard
Most importantly, work this through with the others in your business.
You are all in this together.
You all have unique insights that may help solve the problems.
And, please, keep pushing our businesses to GO HARD, at a 1.5m social distance, so we can all come out the other side, stronger, more creative and sustainable.
