Despite the current tumult in the business world, many business leaders and employees are ready to get back to work.
What do You Need in Your Pivot to Normalcy?
Something we’ve discussed in recent articles including our reopening checklist, the importance of mobility now and in the future, and our whitepaper documenting why moving to the cloud today is mission critical, it’s also important to think beyond the process of opening your doors.
A recent guide from thought leader APQC titled Reactive to Proactive looked to explore your path to a sustainable rebound after things head back to normalcy. Discussing tactics over the next 90 days, this explored the impact of the lockdowns on business, the journey to the new normal, and the challenges that businesses may face.
Top Skills to Set Yourself Up for Success
It also provided insight into the topic we would like to discuss today, the skills you may need to develop in order to put yourself in a position for success.
Flexibility: Ensure You’re Ready to Change
Being able to pivot requires a mentality, plan, and ability to do so. This, however, requires a flexible leadership team and an adaptable business strategy, which is why flexibility was the top skill listed in the report. Resilient and responsive businesses had leadership who could adapt to changes and pivot with ease, while stagnant and bureaucratic ones were left scrambling. Moving forward, more leaders will look to streamline their businesses and adopt new practices built around agile, flexible operations.
Innovation: Looking Forward and Acting
Closely following flexibility is a renewed focus on innovation. Pivoting is one thing, evolving is another, and being able to make it through the ramp-up phase will require a bit of both. Companies need to stay one step ahead of the competition. Understandably, this requires an understanding of the business and competitive landscape.
Innovation is based on decisiveness, decisiveness relies on having enough data and intuition to understand how to move forward.
Change Management: Planning and Executing on Decisions
You can push a flexibility initiative, focus on evolving your business, but without the vision and leadership to help employees navigate through these, any initiative you attempt is unlikely to deliver the expected results.
From leading a cultural shift to keeping everyone on board with the changes, change management has mattered forever, but with many pointing to this as a catalyst for digital transformation, it’s going to be more important than ever.
Communications: Connecting Your Workforce
A driver behind change management, this “soft skill” was important when you went in and is going to be more important as you come out of lockdown. Especially for those taking a phased in approach to returning everyone to their desks, you’re going to need to balance traditional communication methods with ones you implemented when the work from home orders were put into place.
Risk Management: Navigating the Dangers of the Current Landscape
Budgets are tight, supply chains are shaky, and customers are ramping up too. The future matters, but you can’t sacrifice the present through shaky risk management practices. Keeping your risk management airtight needs to be a top priority as you get back to normal. From compliance to cybersecurity, understanding risks and preventing your business from threats can solidify your long term while securing your short term.
Technological Fluency: Knowing How to Leverage Your Stack
Technology can drive any of the above-mentioned skills—but only if it’s used properly. You can have all the data in the world, but without the ability to analyze it, what good does it do? A significant part of a business transformation is going to be the technology you use to get back to normal, helping you to automate processes, analyze trends, and speed up processes.
Focus your efforts on education. Employees may have some time on their hands to learn, and training may be easier during the pandemic than it would be when you try to schedule classroom learning.
July 23: Join Us for The Path to Recovery: Adapting Your Business Model as the Economy Reopens
Success in the 2020s will require more agility, flexibility, and connectedness. Disruption will come in the form of things that may challenge you more than a pandemic, and your ability to adapt matters.
It’s a good question, and one that we look to answer in an upcoming webinar titled Open for Business – The Path to Recovery.
Scheduled for July 23, this event is focused on helping leaders plan for the future and adapt their business model as the economy reopens. Join MIBAR as we host guest panelist Gary Bettan, President of Broadfield Distributing Inc., Founder and President of Videoguys, and a digital transformation leader who has helped startups and mid-market companies future-proof their business in an ever-changing competitive landscape.
Ready to learn more? Click here to register.
