Navigating the now to be ready for the new.

One question I’m hearing a lot is “what should we be doing now?” 

Even if we’ve got our head around the fact that life has changed dramatically for all of us, it can still be hard to plan and be strategic for a future where COVID-19 isn’t the first word on everyone’s lips.

Companies big and small, with ambitious leaderships and proven products, are not automatically afforded success any more. Many businesses run lean, meaning they don’t hold a whole lot of cash, or have the incentives to save. This ‘in-the-moment’ way of doing things, presumes endless plain sailing and means that it doesn’t take a massive shock to put big names at peril. In fact in early summer, I expect to see more well known brands struggle in a serious way.

So is everything just lose-lose? 

Imagine our economies as a pie divided into slices

One slice tastes just as sweet as the day it was baked. Every part is operating and actually thriving despite our current challenges. 

The second slice is not ruined but it doesn’t look very appetising. It’s charred by the impacts of this global catastrophe but by no means unsalvageable. It has a good chance. 

The last slice of the pie is a different story. It has been burnt to a crisp by COVID-19 but the painful truth is it was already rotting and it may now be unsalvageable. 

Now apply the pie analogy to industries and brands you know. Technology, media, health and some retail are firmly in the first slice, they are soaring. Financial services, industrials and some FMCG are in the second, they will dust themselves off, becoming more efficient principally through digitisation and strong focus on customer experience. Things look much less rosy for travel, leisure and big parts of retail. The question is who can weather the storm, then transform and actually adapt. Others will meet their demise. 

There are strengths and weaknesses in all businesses – it pays to recognise that. For example we’ve seen subscription services like Disney+ sky rocket, while Disneyland gate receipts simultaneously collapse. The same can be said for multiple brands who have seen strong growth in some areas and a complete freeze in other parts of their business. Because of this we will see more exploration into hedging and diversification strategies. 

Covid-19 is once in a generation but crises will become more standard.

By their very nature, crises catch us off-guard. But we are entering into an era of more and more crises of varying magnitudes. This will be the normal operating context for us all. We can ignore that and attempt to react in the moment or we can build resilience. If we’re really ambitious we can take a shot at preventing or reversing looming disasters. 

Health and the environment will become core topics within businesses. We could see the emergence of entirely new functions within organisations who are vested with real decision-making power. Perhaps HR skews more to Health, and CSR more to the environment? Will we see Chief Health Officers and Chief Planet Officers in the future? Either way it is clear these are no longer side topics and must be treated as core to planning.

Teams get us through, they need to be recognised in the new economy. 

The human cost of this experience is staggering. It is something so difficult to comprehend, and the losses will reverberate throughout families for years to come. For companies this is not an ordinary economic recession, it is also a social disruption. Despite this, the lesson here is that people can adapt at pace and be successful even in very trying circumstances. 

Many businesses (and communities and insitutions for that matter) are being held together by the efforts of dedicated teams. People have been put under huge strain and we should be concerned about the impact on everybody's mental health. After all, we all say we are ‘coping’, but the effects of social distancing, new working rhythms, anxiety and social unrest are yet to be truly understood. 

Conversely, some are finding the disruption suits them. Deep thinkers will view this downtime as an opportunity to get master planning done for when the world comes back online. Those with the cash and resources to deploy may see this as a once in lifetime opportunity to hoover up distressed assets.

In amongst the mess there is no doubt that life changing innovations are being tested and future Fortune 50 brands are being formed right now.  Survival mode is real but focus must now be on the new economy..

Recovery isn’t enough. Let’s visualise a world that thrives.

It’s difficult to focus right now; most of us have never lived through times like this. So seeking out objectivity can help. Talk to people – what are they thinking, hearing and feeling? 

On a personal level, the conversations and advice I have had since lockdown have been equal parts fascinating and sustaining. It would maybe take a year to have that many true connections with people, and I think that’s because people are far more open and honest about how they really are.

It seems the world has more awareness of its collective fragility now. How we took a functioning society for granted – and how quickly that has been upended. 

Maybe this will have an impact on what we view as valuable, how we spend our time and what we do to help other people. Can we allow ourselves to think twice before taking on more crap that we don’t need in our lives? Whether that’s buying junk we don’t need or saying ‘yes’ to jobs we don’t want. 

At Moving Brands we decide who we work with, and this is expressed in our Perfect Portfolio. We work with purpose-led organisations who make a positive impact on the world. This has been our ethos for some time but I would not be surprised to see this becoming the ‘new normal’ in professional services.

Imagine what you could do with time dedicated to strategic planning?

This is your opportunity. Post-COVID, imagine there’s a landing strip of green grass, awaiting for you to touch down. But is your aircraft viable? Or will it crash land and crumple? Of course the health of the balance sheet is paramount right now sheet but we must give ourselves the space to consider what role businesses will play in our ‘new economy’? What value will it provide? Who is it for? Will success mean the same thing as it did before?

Seeing this time as a way to look at your purpose, proposition and behaviours is a gift. Considering what the world will look like (and where you fit into it) allows you to re-shape yourself for success. 

If all of this feels overwhelming and daunting, start by setting the table for proper exploration. Then separate out some searching ‘questions’ into mini projects. This might include what market insights can we find? What are our clients telling us? What do we all think could happen (good and bad) 1,2, 5, 10 years from now? How well does our current strategy line up with this? What new things can we explore right now?

In answering any of these questions in any marketplace, it is imperative to have objectivity. Confirmation bias is natural and no one is closer than you to your business. This is hard to do this alone, so find someone who can support you. Through objectivity, ideas can be nurtured as well as pressure-tested. Assumptions can be probed and obstacles can be identified. Doing this ground work will mean you are ahead of the game as the economy opens back up.

Remember, there will be positives out of this.

We might, I hope, see a boom in equality and sustainability.  

This experience will have rattled brands to the core, so expect there to be a huge scramble among them to recapture their former positions once we’re past the worst. Lets wish brands success but not give them a free pass. If we fail to hold them to account for environmentally and socially damaging policies and actions, we risk sleepwalking into another crisis.  

Exploitative and narcissistic business behaviours are also being challenged. We need to encourage an irresistible wave of fresh, progressive, open-hearted, inclusive attitudes throughout the economy. And make no mistake, those values are perfectly compatible with delivering commercial success. I believe the single most important action any leader can take is to create a platform for new ideas and support teams to design the future as they want it to be.

Brand new teams will leapfrog those stuck in the past. They are using technology with fluency, building lightning-in-a-bottle businesses with purpose at their core. They can achieve this with low costs and flat hierarchies. Not all will succeed . But they don’t need to look like the behemoths of the industrial era to be winners in the 4th industrial revolution.

In every single sector, people will be thinking about doing this. Some will already be on it. If you’re waiting to answer these questions until the market gets better, that’s too late.