Message of the Week 23 - 27 November 2020
Week 48 | 2020
Reinventing for the future
There’s an old saying that “when the going gets tough, the tough get going” and 2020 has certainly made us realise what tough, competent and successful crisis management leaders we are when we need to be. We’ve, like countless other businesses, had to reinvent ourselves, adapt processes and change the way in which we engage with our teams. We’ve taken all kinds of measures to meet the needs of the moment, and we continue to roll with the tide. It’s not been an easy year, but it has provided opportunity to flex our resilience.
In a recent newsletter from TomorrowToday Global, Buhle Dlamini noted that most successful leaders understand the business context to make better decisions going forward.
He shared some useful questions that we could use in our
business, such as:
- Customers: How have the needs, wants and expectations of our customers changed as a result of this crisis?
- Remote Work: What mindsets, tools and infrastructure do we need to succeed in the changed reality of work?
- Re-imagine Value: How should we re-evaluate what and who we value in the organisation?
- Future-Proof: How do we create an adaptive, collaborative and resilient way of working going forward?
- Evaluate: What did we learn, what did we do well, what can we do better next time?
According to Dlamini, “Leaders used these questions to clarify their context, while laying the groundwork for experimenting with new ways of doing things. Reinventing the future for the organisations we are working with is about making the habit of asking the right questions and then experimenting new ways.”
I couldn’t have said it better. Asking the right questions does not only make business sense, it is the source of knowledge. There is no better time than now for positive change and this includes developing ideas that come from trying new things, or asking what might be seen as a silly question. The trick is to let go of ideas and expectations of what’s coming, because we just don’t know.
I encourage you to continue asking “what if?” questions, before pursuing the ideas that offer the most promise. To reinvent our future, we need to build people's readiness and receptivity to change, because if there is one thing we know for certain, that there’s a lot more change on its way!