Are you trapped in a Business As Usual loop? Coronavirus to the rescue..
What?! How could you say that? What about all the lives that have been impacted and lost? Look at the social cost of disruption, unemployment, broken businesses. I could die from Coronavirus COV-19! Where’s the upside here?!
Perspective of Opportunity
I invite you to see the potentiality of human and organisational transformation from dis-ease. Humans are creatures of habit, until we are significantly taken out of our comfort zones. Those of us who find comfort in controlling outcomes of the future, will be MOST challenged by the Coronavirus pandemic because right now, it’s so unpredictable.
The Business As Usual (BAU) Trap
Large established businesses have made a culture out of making decisions and driving operations from comfortably predictable, risk averse perspectives. Large organisations have templates, guides and Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems for almost anything BAU. So many reasons to do so right? Efficiencies, effectiveness, backup, governance, oversight.. but have we made it such a habit, that we have become ignorant to its impact on employee empowerment & engagement?
How so? Employee: “I’m unable to follow my own intuitive process. I feel trapped and squeezed into a mould of conformity. If I don’t follow the template and guidelines, I’ll labelled reckless and punished. If I challenge the template, I’d be labelled as uneasy to work with, difficult to manage. However, on the upside for me, it makes me less accountable right? If I use the BAU model template and it doesn’t work out, the model must be off, not me!”
One could argue that this same reasoning is why true innovation is rare in these large immobile organisations. We demand X sample size from Y demographic to ensure we get Z return for our new product. By the time we’ve done that, we lost our first mover advantage and those we surveyed have just given our idea away to our competitors. We’ve frustrated our creative inventor, one of the few highly engaged employees we have, taking them through multiple approval layers and subjected them to a dragon’s den ordeal of judgement and critique.
Did Steve Jobs have to do this with the iPhone?
Transformation Potential
The Coronoavirus pandemic is forcing us go with our intuition, our feels, our gut instinct. You know, the part of us that makes us human and NOT an AI robot? Nobody has a COV-19 predicative or preparedness model for prolonged business disruption for a pandemic. The last time humanity experienced a global pandemic was during the Spanish flu in the 1910’s.
Where do I think the greatest transformation potential lies?
Organisations: Dividend cows, where BAU consistency is valued. These organisations are rewarded for staying in the safety of old paradigm. Retailers who largely depend on non-loyal walk-by foot traffic. Will they birth a new paradigm or just “cope”?
Employees: Disengaged employees, working from home, are quickly going to realise the stark contrast to their workplace situation. Will they quit or “prolong the suffering”?
Consumers: Buying patterns of habitual purchases, will be re-evaluated when supplies are interrupted indefinitely. Will we face our culture of overconsumption? How attached am I to toilet paper?
Humanity: Will we reflect on deeper humanitarian questions? How has our addiction to consumerism impacted our lives, our planet? How deeply does a global narrative of fear engage me, am I numb to it?
Which perspective will you choose?
Chris Cheung
CEO & Co-Founder
KIND.Trainer | A New Paradigm
If your business needs a fresh set of eyes, reach out via DM to see if we can be of assistance. If you have been personally impacted by the Coronavirus, reach out via DM and see if we can be of emotional support.