From lockdown to worktown: Here is what to stop, start, and accelerate for your business or profession - Doctor Wonders, Chief of Staff at Worktown

What’s next? That is the question everyone is asking. The future is not what we thought it would be only a few short months ago. In this article McKinsey & Company we set out seven actions that have come up repeatedly in our discussions with business leaders around the world. In each case, we discuss which attitudes or practices businesses should stop, which they should start, and which they should accelerate.

As businesses and professionals step up into the post coronavirus future, they need to find a safe balance between what worked for them before and what needs to happen to succeed in the next normal. 

1. From ‘sleeping at the office’ to effective remote working

Stop assuming that the old ways will come back. Start thinking through how to organize work for a distributed workforce. Accelerate best practices around collaboration, flexibility, inclusion, and accountability.

Remote working is taking over office life and far more than giving people a laptop. It means no commuting, which can make work more accessible for people with disabilities. The flexibility can be particularly helpful for single parents and caregivers. But will that be the same for the rest of the working class?

2. From lines and silos to networks and teamwork

Stop relying on traditional organizational structures. Start locking in practices that speed up decision making and execution during the crisis. Accelerate the transition to agility.

We used to have all these meetings, with all funtions defending their territories over two hours spent together, and nothing got decided. Now, all of those have been cancelled — and things didn’t fall apart. Instead, the company put together teams to deal with COVID-19-related problems.

3. From just-in-time to just-in-time and just-in-case supply chains

Stop optimizing supply chains based on individual component cost and depending on a single supply source for critical materials. Start redesigning supply chains to optimize resilience and speed. Accelerate ‘nextshoring’ and the use of advanced technologies.

The argument for getting faster with logistics and supply chains has been building for years. It enables companies to be flexible and react well to changes in supply or demand conditions. Individual transaction costs don’t matter nearly as much as end-to-end value optimization.

4. From managing for the short term to capitalism for the long term

Stop quarterly earnings estimates. Start focusing on leadership and working with partners to create a better future. Accelerate the reallocation of resources and infrastructure investment.

 Seven of ten shares in US companies are owned by long-term investors. Long term, which is five to seven years, is the period it takes to start and build a sustainable business. That period isn’t that long. As the current crisis proves, huge changes can take place in much shorter time frames. 

5. From making trade-offs to embedding sustainability

Stop thinking of environmental management as a compliance issue. Start considering environmental strategy as a source of resilience and competitive advantage. Accelerate investment in innovation, partnerships, and reporting

Environmental management is a core management and financial issue. For example climate change and pollution are investment risks. Investors are asking how they should modify their portfolios to incorporate such risk and are reassessing risk and asset values on that basis. 

6. From online commerce to a contact-free economy

Stop thinking of the contactless economy as something that will happen down the line. Start planning how to lock in and scale the crisis-era changes. Accelerate the transition of digitization and automation

The switch to contactless operations can happen fast, and mobile healthcare is the outstanding example here. For as long as there has been modern healthcare, the norm has been for patients to travel to an office to see a doctor or nurse. We cherish personal relationships with healthcare professionals.

7. From simply returning to returning and reimagining

Stop seeing the return as a destination. Start imagining the business as it should be in the next normal. Accelerate digitization.

The return after the pandemic will be a gradual process rather than one determined by government publicizing a date and declaring open for business. Only rarely will companies be able to flip a switch and reopen. Recovering revenue, rebuilding operations, rethinking the organization, and readiness for digital solutions are the keys.

About the author(s) Kevin Sneader, the global managing partner of McKinsey, is based in McKinsey’s Hong Kong office; Shubham Singhal, the global leader of the Healthcare Systems & Services Practice, is a senior partner in the Detroit office.

NB - This article can be downloaded from McKinsey & Company and is brought to you by Wonders Ebimotimimowei Pibowei, the Chief of Staff at WORKTOWN (remote ultimate search engine to unlock nations into working every day).