Leadership in a Crisis, New epoch, New struggles

Authored by Saana Siddiqui, CEO, TYDideas.

For many Leaders this time has been a super firefighting situation, it's been unlike any other time of crisis. Many leaders shudder at the thought of generic change, during these times, many were caught unaware as it wasn't just a change over a period of time, it was a magnanimous shift. The way a leader will look at new basic business models and strategies now can help organizations create greater shifts.

Most of the time organizations run on a "MEME". The "MEME" of internal structure and self-development, this "MEME" won't work anymore. A MEME is an element of a culture or system of behaviour passed from one individual to another by imitation or other non-genetic means. (Ref: Oxford Dictionary.) Within organizations, the past systems won't work. The MEMES have to change and NEW MEME's needs to be introduced.

New methodologies and new paradigms will have to be bought in by today's business leaders, they will have to take quick actions and fresh decisions now and for the years to come. This change will define the fate and future and impact deep-set business outcomes. Firms that can now create remarkable balance and protect the way they are running their companies, with new processes will help them to scale and sail through these tough call periods.

What kind of a NEW MEME can be introduced to resolve current struggles? Here are 3 important ones. This will also be the call to the willpower of the organization and how resilient they are in times of crisis.

Scenario Planning

1. Shift in Scenario – Leaders will need to create a space to visualize long-term outcomes. The space to manage long hauls from this one single window of crisis, as this recovery might take years. As leaders can now evaluate the most likely deeper impact of the crisis on the financial aspects of the business and run a replay of scenarios to create a crisis plan that works for their business.

For them to come up with that plan, they will need to understand and consider two major aspects that are going to decide the direction of that plan.

The first would be to analyse the depth of change in demand and the time frame of the impact. These must be intently monitored, only if these variables are regularly and deeply reviewed can one figure out the strategies to make impactful actionable plans that would bring results at all levels of the spectrum.

2. Financial system – Leaders will need to align all their efforts, investments and work on offering solutions to immediate issues. Revise the existing Model of products or the services that are being offered. See if they can be modified to resolve current time issues. What worked earlier won’t work now. Even the way of customer service has changed and evolved over the last few months. Few things will need to just move out of the system, as they might have already been redundant and more so now. Checking recent consumer data would be helpful to evaluate and create new solutions

1.  Fast Paced Strategies – Most leaders have now come to terms with the new aspects of working, not just life even the way one works will never be the same again. New aspects to work and redesign innovative thinking will be required. Fast movement of strategies and reformation of old ones is the need of the hour. These can help the organization to attract new responses from the market.

2.  Digital Transformation - This is the most important aspect to change that leaders have had to cope, those who have not been able to change with the digital movement can be seen as redundant in the system. New Digital campaigns, new sales funnels digitally, new modes of marketing and PR which are technologically advanced have seen breakthroughs, companies no longer need the intranet, they need apps and bots to bring in channelled employee energy.

The Customer flow is changing, it’s become more compact and customers are more aware and have learnt a new way of ease and simplicity.

Over the coming few months AI will take predominance, working with new skills will be seen as an asset.

So, uncover the old MEME and create a NEW model of working.

The Psychology of the mature human being is an unfolding, emergent, oscillating, spiralling process marked by progressive subordination of older, lower order behaviour systems to newer, higher order systems as man’s existential problems change. – DR. Clare W. Graves.

 DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are solely of the author and Adgully.com does not necessarily subscribe to it.