Preparing for Business post the Corona-craze!

In Extreme VUCA times like these, it is difficult to see beyond the crisis! So many industries are under pressure and many businesses are struggling to keep afloat. I want to share a calmer perspective amidst the prevalent doom and gloom, not by any means under-mining the seriousness of the situation, but offering an outlook that might help to be better prepared for recovery…eventually.

I have lately been reflecting on a key thought that I am sharing with my colleagues and clients at Axellerus: “This too shall pass”! Even this perfect storm, driven by the corona craze, will come to an end sooner or later…and when it does, businesses need to be ready to hit the ground running or risk being left behind. I was privileged to do business and emerge stronger in extreme VUCA during my long career with Unilever and recently as a Consultant. I share here five key take-outs from my personal experience in VUCA times:

1.      Review business fundamentals: in extreme VUCA, having and living by the right Strategy is more important than ever. Guiding questions could be: are we competitive enough? What is our USP (unique selling proposition), do we need to re-think our competitive advantage? Do I need to re-purpose my Strategy? Will our markets be drastically changed by the current events and how will this impact our customer needs going forward? Some of my clients are smartly taking this time to "sharpen the saw" and answer these key questions. Be sure to use a systematic approach when you review your strategy, ensuring wide ownership and buy-in from key stakeholders.

2.      Stay very close to your markets and customers: even the best written strategies will not be successful if not implemented very thoughtfully. On an earlier LinkedIn post , I have reflected on the importance of ensuring a strategy is firmly grounded in market and competitive reality. I have shared evidence from HBR that over 60% of well-formulated strategies fail in execution, often because executives are too internally focused and loose sight of their rapidly evolving customer needs. Customers particularly take notice of the businesses that make an effort to understand their needs in VUCA times, and it does wonders for their loyalty to the business and brands. It could be something as simple as offering a low unit price pack for a consumer good in times where consumers experience a liquidity crunch or genuinely reflecting the consumer’s pain points in a communication message.

3.      “Think divergently”: I particularly liked a thought from an HBR article on managing in VUCA that encouraged staying open to new and different ideas from a diverse team. This entails looking beyond your own ideas, encouraging all team members to participate in problem solving and evaluating different thoughts, without prejudice.  This requires a lot of confidence and a strong leadership, which leads me to the next point…

4.      Exercise visibly calm, yet authentic leadership: I was lucky to work with leaders who, despite being acutely aware of major crises, were able to absorb a big part of the pressure and project a calm leadership style which helped focus the business on "Solutioning" rather than sinking into panic-mode. This does not mean denial of the urgency or criticality of a situation, but rather a methodical and sound approach to stabilizing the business. In Deloitte’s “2019 Global Human Capital Trends” survey, over 80% of respondents  cited the ability to lead through more complexity and ambiguity, as an important new requirement that the 21st century has imposed on business leaders.

5.      Embrace agility: In today’s world, customers’ needs are constantly shifting. This is further accelerated in times of extreme VUCA. The assumption should always be that the only reality is change, and in the case of VUCA, it is accelerated change. Remaining agile entails fundamentally altering the way we do business, both operationally and strategically, to embed a culture where we question our modus operandi every day, in everything we do. “Is there a better way of doing things?” should be the key question we ask ourselves. This article by Forbes underscores the importance of a culture of “experimentation” and highlights the importance as well as the challenges in building an agile organization where “continuous experimentation is the normal way of life”.

I hope some of these reflections will help you to better prepare to hit the ground running after the corona craze subsides-hopefully soon! As VUCA will certainly remain a key feature of the business world today and in the future, whatever measures we put in place today to think differently, react more soundly and flexibly will only strengthen business competitiveness going forward. Now is the time to focus our efforts on being fit for doing business in this ever changing-and exciting- VUCA world.

Stay safe!