12 Jun The New Normal
When you are invited to talk in great events about CHANGE, you need to pick one of the two primary options:
Option A- be smart, be safe, and tell: The infusion of new disruptive practices will be great, and moving forward it will be greater.
Option B- take risks, listen your gut, expose and embrace the uncertainties, and tell:
Disruptions empower us to come up with new modes of describing, representing, and designing -however — it also creates tectonic shifts in the roles of decision-makers, tool developers, and creators. Moving forward: some professions will become more grounded, some will transform, and some other will disappear.
Even if you perceive disruptions as the challenge of the unknown, face it and try to find a touchpoint that aligns with your interests, your insight and your expertise.
We humans will steer all this to the direction it needs to go.
At the end of the road, you will still have yourself, your feelings, your take on things, your memories and the experiences that will keep unfolding with your inner self. You will matter.
Don’t expect others to tell you what that experience will look like. Take the initiative, be the driving force!
Disruption can mean different things to different people. The fundamental thing to get your head around is that it isn’t just merely replacing one product with another, but coming up with a product or service that add more value than its predecessors, and shake up the status quo while at it.
Clayton Christensen characterises disruption well in his “Innovator’s Dilemma”. You can also find more of his wisdom here. In essence, there are two types of disruption:
A new product or service that addresses a market that previously couldn’t be served. The new product or service is a cheaper or more convenient alternative to what is already available in the market.
During a crisis, incentives and motivations change. Disasters can get the collective adrenaline and creative juices flowing. Don’t waste this opportunity and don’t hesitate to disrupt yourself. Fingers crossed, the next one as big as this one won’t come any time soon… so be the “new normal”!
Before radical change was forced on us, the business world was really just full of excuses of why we couldn’t change the way we work.
Yet the pandemic has become the catalyst for us all to consider what’s important, useful and meaningful.
For many, there is little doubt that using digital transformation to accelerate workflows and drive efficiency has a critical role to play in shaping a new way of working.
But, for us, our way ahead lies in putting our focus on people. Positive, lasting change will be driven by cultural transformation, where our employees and customers are at the heart of every decision we make.
What the new normal could should look like
Many of the technologies needed to support cultural change are already available, as they simplify workflows, enable remote teams and make work more meaningful for employees.
We’ll see a new era of remote collaboration and creativity, with reduced travel bringing the opportunity to meet (virtually) with so many more people for more fruitful interactions.
There will be a greater acceptance from business of flexible working, helping to remove obstacles to creating more diverse and inclusive work cultures. Physical access to workplaces for those with disabilities will not be an issue, and talent can be interviewed, onboarded and supported in any location.
We’ll see many business leaders commit to enabling a work-life balance.
Our workplaces will change, as businesses rationalise their buildings and desks and focus on smaller workspaces that create the best environments to support productivity, collaboration and company culture.
Right now, the impact of the coronavirus is far from over and the emphasis continues to be saving lives and protecting the health and wellbeing of citizens.
But we are starting to see the first steps of the path for the way forward for businesses and their employees.
Technology is an enabler in accelerating the digital transformation businesses need to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, but we can’t lose sight of the human touch.
We need to make sure managers are accessible, help our employees manage the impact of home working on family life. Technology needs to work in the service of people.
If we can achieve that, as we move through the pandemic, the business world can emerge in a better place. A place where there are more opportunities for everyone.