“Life is ten percent what happens to us and ninety percent how we respond” (Charles Swindoll, Pastor). This quote has been a guiding pillar for the CEO of the business that’s the subject of today’s column. She shares that “we don’t get to choose what life throws at us, but we have the power to respond powerfully to the parts of life over which we have control.” This is the story of one business owner’s experience of being tested both personally and entrepreneurially, through the storm of the pandemic.
With the instruction for citizens to shelter in place and activation of the country-wide lockdown, Amelia, (for the purpose of this column, we’ll call her Amelia) realised that this was a life threatening situation. She likened the pandemic to the sound of a siren that keeps getting louder as it comes closer, until it’s close enough to be deafening. That was Amelia’s first reckoning of the pandemic and its impending impact.
During those early days, there were many moments of anxiety as she came to grips with the range of possible outcomes. Not one day, however, did Amelia ever entertain the thought of shuttering the business, that act was simply out of the question. She remembered the quote “you haven’t come this far, (as in 24 years of operating a business), to only come this far.”
Her second realisation, was that the crisis was business threatening, since business activity had to cease, at least in its “accustomed normal” format, for an indefinite period. So, like everyone else on the planet who had been following the pandemic’s trail of destruction and mayhem, this business leader had to become strategic in formulating the next steps of the business response to the evolving situation. What became clear, was the need for decisions that would prevent full shutdown of the business, the need to minimise the debris from business losses and the need to preserve livelihoods. This first phase of the crisis was a time of acknowledgement and acceptance of a situation that was a ninety percenter for Amelia. She could do nothing about the raging pandemic.
In hindsight and months into the lockdown, Amelia realised that she hadn’t had the time or the luxury to focus on fear…you know, the kind of mind-numbing fear that locks out optimism, destabilises physical equilibrium and paralyses progress. So she closed this first phase with the mental acceptance of “what it is, is what it is” and struck up a relationship with “how do I navigate the ten percent?”
During the second stage of Amelia and her team’s journey, given the resolve to press on, their mission was to create a new set of operating co-ordinates for the business and realign to a culture of “immediacy” that would focus on the immediate priorities.
The key priority was connectivity and would include the on-boarding of additional digital tools to support internal employee productivity, as well as to sustain connectivity with clients. The second priority was to provide transitional support to clients as they grappled with operational disruption, the rapidity of digital migration and the social-emotional needs of their employee communities.
Amelia and her team decided to produce a weekly bulletin that provided practical tips and techniques for maintaining emotional stability and being resilient during challenging situations. The team did not miss a week and produced ten bulletins that were shared with clients and widely, on social media platforms.
Amelia and her team have remained intact, no lives nor livelihoods have been lost and they are now in the third stage of their journey. The road to recovery. Here is where the team is now resetting strategy for the “next normal” having learnt some hard lessons through the disruption. This crisis was not wasted.
Amelia shared that the team appreciated three big takeaways from this crisis.
Firstly, preparedness for the unknown, matters. The businesses that sailed through the digital component of the disruption were the ones that had been proactive in responding to a world that has been giving us signals of the relentless pace of technological change. Many businesses took no notice of the signs and had to accelerate their digital footprint overnight. Discussions about risk mitigation and preparedness for the “what ifs” have now become agenda items at leadership levels. Why? Because like Amelia and her team, the issue of business continuity hinges heavily on being prepared for the unknown.
Secondly, businesses need to become truly customer driven. Customers give us clues on what they want and how they want to be served. Going forward, customer driven businesses will be focussing on three elements. Generational shifts in the customer population, the continuing evolution of the customer and the relentless pace of technological change.
These three elements will be mounting an assault on those product driven businesses that create products and then look for the customers. Customer power now dictates that one size does not fit all and customisation of offerings to suit differentiated needs, wins repeat business. Unlike their product driven counterparts, customer driven businesses discover customers’ needs and create the products and services for which the market already exists.
Thirdly, times of uncertainty require resilient leadership. Leaders must not collapse when the horizon is invisible or if the situation is a moving target. They must undertake actions to build cultures that revolve around innovation and continuous improvement as a “normal” way of life. In this way, employee communities become resilient and the business impact of external disruptive events, is blunted.
When last I spoke with Amelia and her team, they were having a discussion about how “great opportunities often come brilliantly disguised as impossible situations” (Charles Swindoll) and were about to launch their shiny new marketing plan, as a customer driven business.