Surely the terrible cost that the world has paid for Covid-19 demands a rethink, a reappraisal, and a willingness to press the reset button on some of things that we have for so long considered to be essential and believed to be important?
The global crisis has meant that trends and threads that have been recently emerging across society are now accelerating through business culture, and it’s time we all started to pay attention.
Isn’t it sobering that during a time when we can only spend money on ‘essentials’, economies are tanking? Rather suggests, doesn’t it, that those economies were relying on us all buying unessential things?
Because the truth of it is, up until now, we’ve all been out there consuming like there’s no tomorrow. For a lot of businesses that meant it didn’t really matter if what you were doing or what you were providing was just a bit of ‘fluff’, a nice to have; as opposed to something genuinely useful, helpful, or essential. But now, the crisis has shone a rather uncomfortable light on all of that.
So ask yourself, are people really missing whatever it is that you make or do, now that they can’t get it?
Because you can bet your bottom dollar that they’re starting to wonder the same thing.
And that’s an interesting litmus test for the future isn’t it? Take a deep breath. Be prepared to accept some uncomfortable truths. Are you doing what you do because you can, or because people really need it?
Use this pause in the usual run of business to actively reframe your strategy until you are adding genuine value that would be missed if it went away.
Businesses everywhere are pivoting during the crisis. Lego, Dyson, Brewdog, McClaren, NASA (to name but a few) are all brilliantly adapting their skillsets and modifying their production runs to help produce ventilators, sanitizer, scrubs and facemasks. And that’s amazing if you can do that. And people will remember that you did.
But everyone can and should be thinking long term.
For after this is over. Learning from how quickly people managed without us.
So what can and should we do to pivot our products and services from the nice to have, to the can’t possibly do without?
(And while we’re listing the good guys, have a look at architects Cushman & Wakefield. They’ve been thinking about when we go back to work and have come up with ideas for the ‘Six Feet office’. Keeping us all effective and maintain a safe social distance at the same time. Smart stuff.)
I used to know a North American CEO who permanently kept 2 private jets, one on each coast, fuelled and ready to go. Not because he really needed them. But because he could. He’s not alone. Think about all the business flights we all used to jump on because we absolutely had to be there? It turns out we didn’t either. We just like to think we did. And the really great news is that we really don’t. Current working practices prove we don’t. We’re all getting the job done. And we’re getting to spend a bit more time with our loved ones. And the skies are clear. Ask any Los Angelian.
"There are a few things, like business trips, that I doubt will ever go back…It's simply a measure of necessity…”
— Bill Gates, Business Insider Apr 14 2020
The Swedes have coined the word flygskam. It means flight shame. They believe that frequent flying is something to be ashamed of, not something to flaunt with a gold card on your luggage.
In the wake of the virus, such badges of importance, such baubles of success, along with marble receptions, glass atriums and $200k wristwatches aren’t that impressive are they? Not when on a daily basis we see footage of weeping and exhausted health care workers. In fact in the light of all the key workers who are literally killing themselves to keep us alive, fed and safe, displays of opulence as a mark of success that we once thought so clever just look crass and tone deaf.
The things that we believe to be essential are different now.
10 years ago we bailed out the banks with public money. We thought that was essential. Now I bet we all wished we’d been investing in health care instead.
So read the room. Redefine what success looks like.
Success these days looks like meaningful action. Doing something real that matters. And by the way, separating the letters in your corporate logo to show your ‘solidarity and support of social distancing’? Really? When a 99 year old war veteran raises £28million by walking around his garden? How’s your logo looking now?
So behave responsibly. Benefit the community.
The brands that dropped everything and did what they could during this horror will be remembered.
And moving forward, lose the marble.
Replace it with data screens that detail the value you’ve added to your client’s share price. The number of people you employ. The mortgages and school fees you help to pay. The contribution you’ve made charity and local communities. How many children you’ve helped save from hunger or poverty.
Whatever it is, make it about more than just bragging about how much money you’ve made for yourselves.
Moving forward that’s what the new metrics of success will look like.
For a long time, we’ve believed that money and position was an isolator. A force field that would protect us as organisations and as individuals, to help us weather the storm. Then something like this comes along. I’ve said it before that complacency is the enemy of innovation, that doing well often is what stops you from doing better. Well guess what, complacency can also stop you from being ready for when the shit hits the fan.
In the same way that each and every organisation dedicates a sizeable budget to innovation, looking to future products and services; we should all be investing in planning for catastrophic future events.
Because we know now that this can happen. The military spend a lot of time and money planning, training and rehearsing for wars that we all prey will never happen. So that they are ready if they do.
Because when this one is gone, climate change is waiting in the wings.