Year in Review 2020 @ Design Prodigy

First, a quick review of 2020

Worst ever? Historians argued that 2020 was only 5th worst (at the moment) in human history.

I am glad that Design Prodigy dodged the rain of bullets and survived. This is ONLY possible because of the following people which I am eternally grateful for:

1. Government of Singapore. The business support measures were decisive and timely. We were confident to retain all our staff and continue chugging along to prepare for recovery. This was critical as it supported us through the months of zero deals until the deals started to flow again from September and we started seeing a strong opportunity pipeline. THANK YOU! 🙌🙌
2. Clients. We saw more MNC clients trusting us with tough marketing challenges and execution. We thank you for the opportunity and belief in us. Your words of affirmation and encouragement of our work kept us going through the darkest period. Thank you for your trust and belief in our team. We also saw a sharp increase in local medium and large enterprises trusting us to provide strategic branding and marketing consultancy to better prepare for recovery. THANK YOU! 🙌🙌
3. Colleagues. At the onset of pandemic, we doubled down on accelerating our capability development with our memorable 100 Days Challenge, followed by 3 months of innovation with our Ungoogleable Challenge and we finished the year with the #2021Ready to prepare for our next step. Throughout, I saw all full timers united as a team, developed new capabilities at crazy speed and grew their individual expertise to the next level. It all paid off in the last quarter, with NPS score of +40, closing significant deals and securing new accounts. In 2020, our team worked so hard that a number of us experienced multiple episodes of burnt out. Even though we planned for personal leave in December, almost all have to work periodically due to increased business activity. I saw their growth, sacrifice and contribution. Grateful for this amazing team. THANK YOU! 🙌🙌

"Battle tested" lessons learnt in 2020 that we are carrying forward to 2021

Generally, the team at Design Prodigy was feeling confident going into 2021, whether the confidence was warranted, we shall know by the end of 2021. Whatever that underpinned the optimism after 2020 should be valuable as it might inspire new ideas for 2021.

So lets go.

The above was an image from the trenches during World War I, which I used in my first ever pandemic response presentation to my team, I remembered it was about the period when there was a run for rice, toilet rolls and such. I thought it was good to help the team set the narrative that this was going to be long drawn, while some industries may enjoy a pandemic boom, majority of businesses across industries would be in the trenches for a long time (likely multi-year).

"Never let a good crisis go to waste." Winston Churchill

It was important to convince my colleagues early that this was NOT just a storm that will pass in weeks or months, which would favour a "hunker down" posture to wait out the storm. Contrary, this crisis present an opportunity to gain ground against the "hunker down" companies. We revisited our roadmap, pressed the "fast forward" button on our capability development initiatives and switched our "En Garde" mode to permanent.

One of the many reasons that the tide turned in WWI was the invention and increasing use of the tanks (disruptive innovation). Our job was to find out the pain points of businesses and marketing in midst of pandemic and new normal, and start thinking, looking and innovating for solutions (possible tank designs, critical components etc) that were suitable for disruptive times like these.

Easier said than done.

Honestly at that time, there were little good alternatives amongst the confusion. This was the only pathway that appeared the most sensible for us. Admittedly, given the abstract nature, none of us really know what a marketing "tank" look like. Fast forward to the end of the year, we still do not have a "tank" yet but in the pursuit of it, we had upskilled considerably, got to know a lot of smart experts, gained more confidence and most importantly improved our sales conversion rate (Yay!).

Here are our 5 "Battle tested" lessons learnt in 2020 that we are carrying forward to 2021

1. Safety matters. I'm not referring to the COVID-19 safety measures, which are important but rather, giving the assurance that your job is safe. We did not embark on lay offs or salary cut, we ensure everyone is trained towards a role that is safe from automation and offshoring, now and near future.
2. Regular collective sense making sessions. Almost every role has a "probe" and "innovation" function, to uncover new perspectives, possibilities, and information. We synchronise weekly for operational update, and new discoveries are highlighted to either sense make on the spot or to serve as data point.
3. Learn and apply FAST. I was wondering whether to list this as one of key learning as it looked straight forward. For the last 2 years we had been tweaking our hiring and probation to ensure those only those who can learn and apply fast in a dynamic environment were confirmed. After going through 2020, I realised how important and strategic it really was. Especially when we faced a high stake uncertain period with limited resources, I realised there was a huge operational advantage of talents who were fast to learn and apply, especially those with autodidact abilities, they just took lesser resources (both time and trainers) to upskill and they could experiment at lower costs which proved critical in quickly validating hypothesis.
4. Invest in expertise. Perennial truth and even more so in a Pandemic crisis. Over the course of pandemic, we deepened our expertise by learning from the best, be it a course available on Linkedin, Udemy or directly from virtual rockstar professors. I signed up and completed both Marketing Week Mini MBA for Marketing and Brand Management by Prof Mark Ritson, as well as Prof Scott Galloway's T-algorithm Strategy Sprint. I could not recommend these courses highly enough. After being more well trained than before, My company and team were already seeing the payoff.
5. Rest matters. If you were to tell me in 2019 that there was ever such a thing as Work-from-home Burnout, I would have laughed my head off. Fast forward to today, and I am glad that conversation didn't take place or I'll be eating my words. Who would have known that working from home with kids would be THAT hard?! And to realise our little brain was not able to differentiate and switch between work and relax mode while working from home! The moment we thought we learnt our lesson that rest was so so important and started scheduling mandatory rest in December... you know, the quiet time? We forgot that this time round, nobody was going anywhere for winter vacation. Maybe some short staycation... but in reality, work and opportunity was still coming in. Supposedly a Good Problem, except we were already all so worn out. Grateful that my team decided to suck it up, dig deeper and continue to work while on their personal leave. Admittedly, managing rest was something I screwed up completely in 2020 and it was one of key lesson that I will definitely carry to 2021.

Looking forward, while K-shaped recovery was raised, forgive me for remaining cautiously skeptical. Even for the best scenario, my subconscious was trying to psychologically protect me "out of an abundance of caution" by conjuring a bevy of black swans talking to each other on who to go next. I hope they never make up their mind and just go away. Nevertheless, the same black swans were keeping me on my toes 24/7 and be proactive.

Anyway, it is likely we might cross each other in the trench while waiting for the "tank" moment to arrive. I look forward to hear your stories and learn from you. If there is something I can help in anyway, do reach out too.

Thank you for spending time reading this article. I hope you will find some parts useful in someway for your journey in the new year. I like to wish you a happier new year in 2021.

If you like to enrich this conversation, please feel free to add your comments below or simply drop me a PM.

2021, here we come.