The Chinese word for Crisis is made up of two characters meaning Danger and Opportunity. The Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic of 2020 has brought us into a new and unknown future; the new normal. What will you choose: Danger or Opportunity? What is your post Coronavirus Countermove? The time to Reboot and Prepare your organization is now!
We’ve all experienced the dangerous side of the crisis pendulum: lost sales, financial instability, uncertainty, the need to re-establish our business base, new employees, and customer safety-conscious mindsets; Uncertainty, Anxiety, Stress. But perhaps the Opportunity side of Crisis Pendulum is better: an opportunity to outflank and outpace your competition, which can be caught flat-footed, in a cost-cutting, spending-cutting mode and slow to respond. When the competition backs down, that’s the right time to double down; an opportunity to gain ground and make a leap; an opportunity to attack!
There is no going back to the pre-coronavirus economy and “business as usual” because those days are clearly over. To think otherwise would be a mistake. It’s a new world for consumers, businesses and brands. The New Reality is before us. We need to: Stabilize, Analyze and Concentrate. Before we rush into the New Normal, we must first slow down and reassess. We are compelled to change, improve, and find more creative ways to operate our organizations. We have to stop playing defense and start playing attack. But that requires planning!
1. Reassess your strategy:
Strategy is about winning. Playing simply to participate is counterproductive: it’s a recipe for mediocrity. Winning is what matters and is the ultimate criteria of a successful strategy. Leaders who choose to Play vs. Win end up settling for industry average results at best.
Large organizations Choose to win rather than simply compete. Strategy is a way to win and nothing less; a battle plan to win. Strategy refers to the ways in which an organization’s competitive advantage will be achieved. These include the activities that the organization undertakes to gain a sustainable advantage over the competition. The lack of strategy has a clear and obvious result: it will kill you! Maybe not right away, but eventually organizations without winning strategies die. The essence of strategy requires you to make trade-offs: choosing what not to do. Therefore, the essence of execution is truly not to do it. Your choices should be based on a strategic fit with your: business model, system of activities, competencies, and capabilities that you can confidently and consistently deliver to your target customers.
Above all, your strategy should be based on differentiation. Equality is the Danger Zone. Differentiation creates competitive advantage, and competitive advantage provides the only protection an organization can have. Competing to be the best feeds on imitation. Competing to be unique thrives on innovation. How is your organization different from the competition? What can you do better than your competition?
2. Alignment:
Lack of alignment is the #1 reason organizations don’t perform at a higher level and produce better results. Achieving alignment between an organization and its strategy is critical to success. Without alignment, even the best strategy in the world will fail. Because? Because alignment is the link between strategy and execution. Organizational alignment occurs when an organization is aligned with the organization’s strategy, such that the organization’s business model, systems, activities, and talent support its strategy. The closer the alignment, the more effectively the strategy will be executed. The tighter the alignment, the better the performance.
Ultimately, no strategy can be better than the people who must implement and execute it. Performance standards and expectations, right people, in the right jobs, trained to perform, accountable, properly directed, and recognized and rewarded for results. Rigorous execution, meticulous attention to detail, with structure and discipline. Alignment! Make sure of this: If you don’t get the right metrics, you probably aren’t following any of the required behaviors. Your Metrics should reflect Behaviors that are Measurable. You cannot improve what cannot be measured.