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Even with the arrival of vaccines, recovery this year will call for strong brands and supercharged cultures

May 16, 2022

First things first. A very loud and very long round of applause for the scientists, researchers, medics and technicians.

With 3 vaccines approved for use and the rollout already begun in earnest, we can now look forward to better protection, hopefully higher rates of take up and reduction in the number of us that need to reach herd immunity.

Which is brilliant. But it’s not a magic bullet. And it doesn’t mean it’s all over.

A McKinsey survey reports that the new vaccines are ‘likely to accelerate slightly the timetable to the end of the pandemic.’ In the US, that means ‘normalcy’ isn’t likely until Q2 of 2021 and herd immunity not likely until Q3.

Here’s the rub; even in the face of such great news, Covid is not going away soon, and neither are the challenges to your business.

There is light at the end of the tunnel. But all that means is that we are still in the tunnel.

Some organisations were better prepared

Having invested in building a strong brand, they had a powerful market presence to keep the lights on for them even in the darkest of days.

Because they had built flexibility into their business model long before Covid came along, they were able to minimise the disruption caused by the pandemic.

As early adopters of building faster, leaner cultures they were better placed to deal with change, which also means that they’ll be better placed to deal with whatever is coming down the pipeline next.

So here’s some New Year’s resolutions that organisations everywhere should be making to position themselves well in the face of whatever the next 12 months throws at us.

1. Never underestimate the value of having a strong brand

Quite often (in fact a lot) when we’re talking to CEOs and CFOs and the subject comes around to ‘Brand”, you can watch them tune out. Because unlike things like SEO, PPC, content views and other pieces of activity that tend to come with hard metrics, ‘Brand’ can too easily be dismissed as a bit ‘fluffy’. The passion project of the CMO. A luxury in a time when we are all cutting back on luxuries.

You can read at great length elsewhere lengthy diatribes on what is a strong brand, so I’ll keep it simple.

‘Having a strong brand is the same as having a strong reason for someone to choose your product or service above other similar offerings.’

It’s about helping people to choose you when there is a choice.

Why what you do, or how you do it is special. Better.

It helps you attract more customers at a lower cost, who will pay a little more, and more often for what you do or make.

And importantly, it helps you set the context for all your people. It provides a north star, something everyone can navigate by.

And all of that, is no luxury.

There’s a very big number that we like to introduce into the conversation with CEOs and CFOs at this point. The S&P Index broke down company valuations at IPO into component features.

Unsurprisingly in professional services 81% was intangible assets. Surprisingly, the second largest of that, (second only to intellectual expertise) was brand value. At 25% of that 81%.

So that’s just over 20% of your company’s value contributed by brand.

That normally gets people’s attention.

2. Put flexibility at the heart of everything you do

We’ve all experienced bumps in the road, that’s part of the ride of running a business. And because of that, most leaders will have got used to planning 12 months ahead.

If the last 12 months has taught us anything, it’s that at the moment, that seems largely irrelevant when the situation is changing daily.

Building agility into your planning is key.

When no one knows what’s going to happen next, having a bunch of possible answers ready to deploy makes a lot of sense.

Set aside a small budget. You don’t need much cash for this, you just need a bunch of smart, curious people. It doesn’t matter what department, function or job title they have.

What matters is how they think. And that you give them the permission and space to do it. Form them into small, autonomous groups, and set them running lots and lots of innovation experiments.

Get them to spin multiple scenarios of what might happen next to your business. What scenarios, problems or opportunities you might face.

If you’ve picked the right people, there’s going to be lots.

Develop as many unique strategies that address each scenario at its most basic level as you can.

Each one should lead directly to you coming out of this in a position to deliver the value that your customers will need.

The more you can develop, the more likely you are to have the right one to hand when you need to push the button.

Light lots of little fires. See which one catches.

3. Focus on supercharging your culture

The best book I have ever read on building supercharged cultures is Patty McCord’s ‘Powerful’. Patty was the head of talent and culture at Netflix, and her book is genuinely wonderful.

Here’s the grossly simplified headline. Increase employee freedom + attract and nourish only high performing innovative people in every role = greater chance of sustained success.

Normally as companies grow they get complex, there’s less freedom for innovative people to innovate. So they leave.

It’s impossible to run the company informally with a less talented staff profile, so the organisation develops process to increase control. Which drives out more top talent.

And process is oddly alluring. It’s super efficient. There are fewer mistakes. Less thinking required. Everything is optimised for the current situation.

Then along comes change. As it always does. Either the market shifts, or as it has for all thanks to Covid, the whole world shifts on its axis.

The company can’t adapt because it’s just really good at following current process and not being innovative. Inevitable irrelevance and slow death follows…

… but keep rules, processes, approvals to a minimum, keep filling the place with innovative, self disciplined self starters, and you have a flexible, powerful culture that can adapt and evolve to deal with the next mass extinction event.

The final paragraph of Patty’s book is awesome.

‘Keep reminding yourself that people have power. It’s not your job to give it to them. Appreciate their power, unleash it from hidebound policies, approvals and procedures and …they will be powerful.’

Buy yourself a copy and read it, then buy a copy for everyone you work with.

2020 was really tough. 2021 looks like more of the same. Let’s be ready this time.

  • • Build a strong brand
  • • Hardwire flexibility and agility into your business
  • • Put incredible people into every role who are just burning to do that role incredibly.
  • • Create the context and conditions that allow them to be incredible
  • • Stand back and enjoy the view

Strengthening your brand and supercharging your culture are major facets of driving the next stage of growth for businesses post pandemic.

At UNIT_ we have developed the Post Covid-19 Business Growth programme designed to help you strengthen your internal culture, protect productivity and recover faster.

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