Businesses are continually challenged by orthogonal ideas, disruptive business models, and ever-changing market forces. Whether it’s the new startup in the garage or a global pandemic pushing the limits of an organization, companies are being constantly pushed to come up with strategies to sustain, innovate, and pivot.
We’ve seen organizations that were wiped out by COVID-19 and others that sustained, thrived, and have seen accelerated growth. Successful organizations certainly had the ability to innovate and pivot at speed. These organizations synthesized people, processes, technology, and data to create an immune system that offered them the ability to adapt and respond to any change that knocked on their door. This response mechanism to market forces is an inherent culture that constantly keeps the organization ahead of what its customers need – in good times and bad. In fact, these organizations can not only deliver products and services that their customers need but are also able to anticipate needs that the customers never knew of.
The pandemic has certainly taught us the importance of resilience and innovation as key differentiators and this is what sets these organizations apart. We must ask ourselves if “innovation” is part of our DNA? Do we constantly look at new ways of doing things, continually and incrementally seizing opportunities or is innovation a siloed effort and resilience a “crisis management” term at our company?
A study by McKinsey suggested that the US advanced five years ahead in consumer and digital adoption in only eight weeks. Are you readying your organization for this new core strength?
Purpose Driven
Organizations with a clear purpose certainly stand tall amidst storms. As leaders, communicating the purpose internally and externally becomes critical. This north star helps to reorient the organization to a common purpose and provide direction in times of crisis. While teams may identify new ways of delivering products and services, they protect the core purpose that the organization stands for. These teams get closer to customer loyalty and are accountable and responsible to the purpose of the organization. As an example, Unilever believes that you cannot have a healthy business in an unhealthy society and “sustainability” is a larger goal. This drives teams at Unilever to come together in solving global sustainability issues as part of their core business.
Leadership guides behavior and drives organizational response in times of crisis. While it’s natural to expect that businesses should quickly restore to normalcy in difficult times, quick impulsive thinking may not deliver results. It’s important to think and direct the teams towards the new pivot that will keep your products and services relevant. Improving current processes may not even be relevant in the new ecosystem.
Transparency is another critical trait in inculcating a culture of trust and camaraderie. Remaining “united” is at the center of fighting any challenge that the organization faces. At all times, transparent communication remains the glue to that unity. You may not know everything, but the transparent neural network of the organization can provide a solid foundation for collaboration and response across the entire value chain.
Resilient organizations tend to have a strong ‘brand trust’ that instills confidence with the customers and drives the employees to keep that promise. Over time, protecting the “promise to the customers” becomes second nature to the organization and its core value. This then, becomes a differentiator for the business where every individual lives the promise of the organization.
Nimble, Responsive, and Agile
Organizations that are nimble are more responsive and hence more resilient and innovative. We all know that electricity took 46 years to reach customers, telephones took 50 years and cell phones about 12 years. However, in today’s digital world, technology could spur innovation and disrupt traditional business models in months or weeks. YouTube, Facebook and Twitter reached 50 million users in four, three, and two years, respectively. The strategy of these agile and responsive organizations is not always about cutting investments in times of crisis but more about diverting investments towards pivots that will drive the organization along the new trajectory. Nearly half of current business models are expected to be irrelevant in the next five years. With these forecasts, companies will need to know their customer to the minutest of detail and deliver at the highest speed to address those requirements.
In a survey, Samsung, Apple, Dyson, Google, Wikipedia, and Android were identified to be highly agile organizations. These organizations lead the industry in delivering innovations at speed. They are not slowed down by their size but are built on nimble processes and culture to quickly respond to market needs. Android has disrupted wearable technology, Wikipedia is available in 291 languages and is open to the community, Google leads online search engines and is driving innovation with Google Glass and self-driving cars. It may be difficult to imagine a world without some of these organizations.
Flexible and Adaptable
Flexibility and adaptability are key to shifting gears, accepting changes, dropping the status quo, and moving along new pivots. It is the mindset to stray from what you created in the past and focus more on the needs of the future. The organization promotes a culture to renew processes, experiences, skills, etc. on an ongoing basis. People are rewarded for discarding dated practices that may not be relevant anymore. The organization’s resilience comes from the resilience of its employees.
These organizations are problem solvers, they look very different every couple of years and are constantly competing against themselves. They do not plan for long horizons of time, but quickly make incremental changes and adapt to new practices.
Risk Taker
The ability to assume risks and tread uncharted waters takes some amount of conviction and trust. While investments are tied to “facts” and “fear”, investments should be made on “faith” as well. Not every initiative can be justified with an upfront business case. Initiatives that show promise for the future and require experimentation need sponsorship, as such radical ideas can only open up possibilities for the future. Building incentives to promote the “experimentation”, “fail fast”, “design thinking” culture will weave innovation into the fabric of the organization and this trait will come in handy in thwarting any challenge that the organization may face.
Investments in innovation and resilience are not sporadic, discrete investments anymore. These are far from disaster recovery projects or crisis management initiatives. These are not isolated incubation hubs that are insulated from the larger organization. They are ongoing investments into a continuum that builds innovation and resilience in the cultural fabric of the organization.
Continuous Learner
Sometimes, it’s difficult to clearly lay out a prescription to organizational culture. However, continual learning is an essential trait for any company that is on its path to build an innovative and resilient culture. Reskilling is an ongoing program at these organizations. It’s about encouraging employees to move away from their past jobs and redefine their jobs or create new ones that are more relevant for future. With technology lending the ability to eliminate routine, redundant, and repetitive work from our roles, the jobs move up the curve and take us closer to more strategic responsibilities. Socializing success stories as well as failures help teams to learn and adapt to new practices. During the pandemic, many organizations quickly moved to remote operating models and new ways of delivering contactless service. It’s the learning ability of the organization that quickly adapted to these new practices and maintained continuity of business. These organizations always keep an eye on competitors and other organizations to learn from their successes and failures. If you are constantly a) copying relevant ideas that maintain competitiveness and b) coming up with new ideas to create differentiation, you are unlikely to lose relevance in the market.
Clearly, it’s not just one dial that you need to turn. The people, processes, data, and technology need to come together to weave the fabric of innovation and resilience. As an organization, you are continuously working to improve your “Fragility coefficient” – an indicator that ensures that you are not just able to get through a crisis, but emerge stronger and strengthen the loyalty and trust of your customers.
