Even the charming British accents of the newscasters on the BBC can’t soften the brutal reality.
Today’s global outlook is particularly dire.
Lockdowns and travel restrictions in the Southern Hemisphere. Droughts and wildfires from California to Canada, Greece to Turkey. A delta variant of COVID that seems to strike harder, faster – and younger – than what we saw in 2020. And if that wasn’t enough to ruin your Summer, a growing global group unwilling to get vaccinated because they believe Facebook over Fauci and scaremongering over science. Personally, I’ve never seen so many eager contenders for the 2021 Darwin Awards.
Glib attempts at humour aside, there is furious debate about how quickly – and how equitably – the economies of the world will bounce back.
If you take recent earnings reports from Facebook, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple as your yardstick the prediction would be a vigorous rebound. If you look at other sectors that didn’t directly benefit from millions needing food and entertainment delivered to their lockdown bunkers, then slow and faltering might be more accurate. And if you separate countries with moderate-to-high vaccination rates to those barely clinging on without access to vaccines, then the prognosis would be very dire.
The K-shaped recovery seems to be the most accurate way to describe the next few months, or years depending on how effectively COVID is addressed.
That’s great if you sit in a sector (or country) pointing upwards. Not so delicious if you’re on the part angled downward like the waterslides at Disney.
So how ready and resilient is your organization for another 18 months of this rollercoaster?
And what as a business leader can you proactively control?
Here’s a few things you can’t control unless your name is Jeff, Tim, Satya or Elon, and even then, they aren’t immune either.
Global supply chains because governments are still opening and shutting borders with gleeful abandon.
Government interest rates because none of them can keep printing relief and recovery money ad infinitum.
Consumer confidence because activities like getting a haircut, going to the mall, jumping on a plane or eating out currently seem set to that classic song by The Clash “Should I Stay or Should I Go?”
And a few that you can control...
Your marketing and advertising investment. Notice I said investment, not expense. As a proud agency alumni, I’ve seen organizations hack their advertising and marketing budget seeing it as a discretionary expense. That is a recipe for disaster. The excellent folks at Ehrenberg-Bass, home of the erstwhile Byron Sharp, recently released this brilliant piece of research about the dire consequences when businesses stop advertising. Or for a POV on the implications, I’ll paraphrase my dear friend Steve Beck, “No one ever bought a product they didn’t know existed.”
Your learning and development costs. I’m not a L&D legend like some friends so I said costs not investment but this is another traditional “first to fall” piece. My struggle is that without a corporate commitment to L&D how are your people going to credibly stay above (or even afloat) in a world with a dizzying trajectory of social, technological, medical, environmental shifts. Equally, if they’re not informed how are they going to see and seize the next opportunity for your business? Every job post I see asks for curious people…how are you going to nourish that curiosity if they join you?
Your people. Yes, those wonderfully brilliant and equally unpredictable humans in your care. How many do you have? How many do you need? Which one’s are mission critical, and which are dispensable? While those may be the binary management evaluation criteria of old, after 18 months of work from home and a rising proclamation of “The Great Resignation” the more strategic and insightful question should be “do we know exactly and objectively how engaged, motivated and committed they are to our organization?” Watching the very public and very heated debates about heading back to the office, I’m not sure that many organizations have a real read on that critical question!
And the most critical thing entirely in your control?
The most under-appreciated sustainable competitive advantage you have.
Your culture.
Unfortunately, culture remains this poorly understood concept inside many organizations equated with vegan muffins, open concept offices and foosball tables. A soft and squishy thing that HR does to make our people “happy” and “engaged”. Something hard to measure, slow to impact and largely unrelated to the important business efforts of building stuff and making a profit.
Culture is none of those things.
Culture is also not just “how we do things around here”, the values on the wall or the observable behaviours. It’s not just the UGR’s – Unwritten Ground Rules – either. Those are important clues and contributors but they’re not the full picture.
And not the full reason why your culture is your only sustainable competitive advantage.
The definition that resonates most deeply with me is your culture is a mark of the commitment of your people. Their commitment to put their full energies, creativity, and personal reputations behind delivering against your corporate strategy.
Full-blooded and full-throated commitment.
To executing your strategy.
Not debating your strategy as a stalling tactic. Not endlessly discussing your strategy as an obfuscation. Not pondering should or should we not do this. But getting it done. Shipped out the door into the hands of your customers. Customers they’re equally committed to nurturing, delighting, serving, and retaining.
If executing your strategy is important to you (rhetorical question), then consider how critical these components of your business are, particularly in a Recession, and then ask how much your current Culture impedes or accelerates them.
Decision-making. Do and can your people make decisions with ease or with trepidation? Do they know exactly what the “right” or “best” thing to do is or are they ill-equipped and too ill-informed to make those decisions? Do those at the “point of customer contact” have the autonomy and agency to act…or does everything need to go up a chain as long as Jack’s Beanstalk?
Agility. Is speed a reality or a fantasy inside your organization? Or is lumbering and bureaucratic more accurate? Gary Hamel’s “Humanocracy” is a masterful dive into the pitfalls of the latter. As a teaser, I’d encourage you to take this simple test over your morning coffee.
Creativity. Not just the business case fables of Disney, PIXAR, IDEO and Lego but genuine smart, business building tricks, hacks and innovations. Particularly the Innovations part. Can your people imagine – and then skillfully execute – ideas that will change your sector and the trajectory of your company? Do they have the latitude? Do you have the systems and processes to harness and unleash that creativity? And, are you getting your disproportionate “Share of Shower” from your people?
And before you mistakenly take those elements for Culture, remember those are the outcomes of your Culture.
Those are outcomes from a deliberate, continuous, transparent, objective investment in your business and culture.
An investment each, and every, day.
In a boom.
And especially in a Recession!
Perhaps the most critical question you can ask is not “what else will this f**king Pandemic throw at us?” but more simply “have we built a resilient, adaptive and creative Culture?”
And, if you’re unsure of how to answer that question, can I suggest you start here?
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For a great read from a leader who tackled this scenario head-on, I’d encourage you to read this piece written by the Chief People Officer of a US Healthcare organization. Lots of great pragmatic suggestions and ideas.
