It's almost two years in the pandemic, and one would expect that corporate leaders have become skilled at managing ambiguity. So far, the most cited challenge associated with the pandemic is managing remote teams, and the COVID-19 pandemic is the most cited reason for poor service delivery in most institutions. The sad news is that the dream of a COVID-19 free society is still far-fetched considering that it’s hard to estimate the effect of the uneven vaccination rollout plans; it's not going to be business as usual. Currently, most business leaders are focusing on survival issues. The biggest question is, what characteristics will define companies that will emerge more robust post the COVID-19 era?
Few organizational leaders anticipated the magnitude of change that business has been subjected to by the COVID-19 Pandemic. Several institutions have struggled to adapt to the so-called 'new normal.' Implementing significant organizational change is a challenge in a rapidly changing business environment. The volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity of the external environment escalate these challenges. The rapidly changing business environment challenges the traditional business strategy to the extent that when organizations implement the strategy's components, some external environment elements would have shifted or changed completely. There are two sides of the coin in a fast-changing business environment- leaders are either proactive or reactive. This article offers the top three priorities of business leaders in the new normal. To prepare for the post COVID-19 years, leaders need to do more than just survival; they need to rethink how they operate and proactively focus on sustainability by focusing on the following principles of successful change leadership:
1. Organizational Change Vision
Change vision should shift from the objective of a change program to be a state of being for the organization. Organizational change vision is a leadership function that entails how the organization views change, anticipates change, affects change, and adapts to change. Companies with a clear change vision are proactive; they determine the pace of change in their environment. An organization's life span has both evolutionary and revolutionary periods. For each evolutionary period, a particular management style drives growth, and for each revolutionary period, there is a dominant management problem to solve and stimulate growth. The need to keep work teams and families connected during the pandemic prompted Zoom's rise. Zoom beat well-known video software like Webex and products from tech giants such as Google by making a meeting link easy to share as sharing a YouTube video. In a rapidly changing environment, the most common dominant management problem is survival. Organizations that have maintained productivity during the pandemic are those that view change as a state of being.
2. Readiness to Change
Security issues and negative publicist marred zoom's rise, but this did not deter the company from seizing the opportunity to make footprints into clients’ workspace. The company committed to fixing most of the issues brought to their attention. The culture in the tech industry is participative; a client's needs today are tomorrow's products. The pandemic has already proved that office space cost is unnecessary in some professions; thus, post-COVID-19, Zoom will still be a tool for connection.
Change takes place effectively when designed to work at three levels: organizational, team, and individual. Our work in change management reveals that readiness to change is not a function of implementation capabilities. Organizational readiness directly refers to the prevailing culture within the organization. No matter how resourced an organization is, change effort is bound to fail if the culture is rigid. Change readiness is a leadership function, and organizations that respond well to change have a participative approach at every level. They embrace triple-loop-learning, which inspires insight, foresight, and problem-solving at all levels of the organization. The most dominant problem our clients have had to deal with during the pandemic is mastering the concept of managing by objectives. The bottom line is that employees were not ready for the change, as shown by the failure to adapt and drive their goals without in-person supervision. Organizational leaders must utilize the lessons learned to build an agile culture.
3. Uphold the principle of discontinuity
Zoom acted as if its life was limited to the pandemic years, as reflected by how it handled all the security challenges brought to its attention. The company collaborated with authorities and moved quickly to address the weak points gaining the average consumer's trust in the process. The actions of the leaders, apologizing where necessary and acting on weak points resulted in the organization earning a new set of practices that enhanced consumer safety and company success. As a result, Zoom's value increased.
In a rapidly changing environment, business leaders must strategize as if they have a limited life span to make an impact. Leaders should do away with the assumption of continuity and prepare all levels of the organization to be lifelong learners who can anticipate change and adapt the strategies to cope with change. In each revolutionary period, the critical task for management is to find a new set of organizational practices that will become the basis for managing the next period of evolutionary growth. The ultimate goal of successful organizational change should be to establish a learning organization and prepare all structures to exploit opportunities creatively.
Naomi Chitambira is the head coach and principal consultant at Strengths Inc, a coaching and consulting firm. She oversees the company's work in strategic organizational initiatives and human capital processes. Strengths Inc utilizes proven tools and best practices to build adequate change readiness, reduce resistance significantly, and work with internal change agents to create a learning organization.
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