5 bold steps towards the next normal

Photo by Cindy Chen

A leading question for many businesses today is how to implement the learnings from the COVID-19-crisis in their culture and operations. Given the unexpected changes we have seen in the fields of employee relations, customer relations, and even carbon footprint, it is a great opportunity to leverage the momentum and the learnings. Our 5 steps methodology helps you to explore the opportunities and guide you on your journey towards a meaningful post-COVID next normal.

Mental legacy – the key to make change happen?

One of my takeaways from the COVID-19 crisis is the velocity with which many have been able to make fundamental changes in their lives. The speed of change has been a pleasant surprise to me.

For more than 20 years I have been involved with professional service businesses dealing with fundamental changes. I call this change of mental legacy. Mental legacy is the almost genetically determined belief system and behavioral patterns that guide us through our daily lives and determine the way we make decisions. You may call this a paradigm, too.

Changing mental legacies usually occurs when companies want to achieve breakthrough results like becoming more customer-oriented, getting digital, or making dramatic improvements in financial results. These kinds of changes may take up to several years before they will become noticeable.

The big challenge for many businesses today has a different origin. Breaking our mental legacies plays a major role in current developments. And we can learn from that experience. It would be a huge missed opportunity not to leverage the momentum and the learnings.

Our 5 bold steps Make Change Happen methodology helps you become a stronger and more robust organization in the next normal.

Bold step 1: Know where to go, together

The world as we know it today is different from the pre-COVID-19 world. Experiences from the lock-down measures differ on an individual basis. And so may the hopes and expectations to leverage on the changes we have made within such short notice. Aside from the day to day adjustments we have made due to the pandemic-crisis, we have to reflect on the bigger picture too. By sharing our experiences, hopes, expectations, and aspirations for the future.

In essence, this reflection is similar to regular strategy development processes: start with a bold change vision, define your change objectives, and decide on the strategies to achieve that vision. There are many different tools available to facilitate this process. I have achieved the best results by combining LEGO Serious Play and the OGSM Strategy template. In a safe, creative, and explicit team process, these methods help you establish a common understanding within your team about the future direction.

Bold step 2: Be truly honest to yourself

Although all steps are important, being boldly honest to yourself is key to leave your current mental legacy behind. I have learned this from Robert Quinn in his ground-breaking book ‘Deep Change’. Quinn states that deep change can only be accomplished if you dare to face your hypocrisy. He is right about this. I’ve met dozens of people saying they want real change to happen, without considering the consequences of this change on themselves. On their behavior, on their role and self-perception. And maybe even on the way, they perceive the world around them. It takes courage to boldly face your role in building and maintaining the current state. People with high self-awareness and emotional balance may find it easier to confront themselves with bold realities. But even if you do so, acknowledging your constraints, flaws or even unethical motivation is confronting. It takes time to process this confrontation and to re-erect with a newborn perspective on yourself. However, going through this process pays off. It accelerates the change process because it enables you to let go of the figurative elastic cords that keep pulling you back to where you were before.

Bold step 3: Learn from experimentation (and failure)

I always find this the most inspiring and interesting step. If you change your mental legacy, you are going to perceive the world from a different perspective and find opportunities that seemed unattainable.

What you took for granted is no longer self-evident. Just look at your daily routine to commute to an office for work. Because work was supposed to take place from 8:30 AM in the office. That routine is no longer self-evident. We have to find new routines to get our work done. One way to find new practices is by planning and discussing it with colleagues to come up with solutions for every situation you can imagine to keep the work going.

Another approach is to start doing it and reflect on what you experience. Learn from the future as it emerges, so to speak. You will learn along the way and have to come up with solutions for problems as they emerge. With this approach, I have seen many remarkable breakthrough results. Issues that were thought to be a huge problem upfront, appeared not to be a problem at all. And the issues we had to solve were the ones we could only learn from by doing it. So, my message is: start doing and learn instead of planning and discussing.

Bold step 4: Empower leaders of change to make a difference

I’ve always been surprised by how many organizations are still built upon management practices that have been around since Fredric Taylor introduced scientific management in the early 20th century. The core beliefs about management and managers haven’t changed: improve the effectiveness and performance of the system. As long as the current system is in a status quo, effective managers are highly appreciated and rewarded for delivering planned results.

The game changes dramatically if we create fundamental change, like changing our mental legacy. Instead of following a predefined path to known results, it becomes exploring new roads to unfamiliar outcomes.

This is not the game of managers; it is the playing field for change leaders. People with an innate talent for ambiguous circumstances who can guide others on an explorative journey. Empower these talented people! Especially in current uncertain times, when it is almost impossible to predict our nearby future.

I have to warn you with this bold step: don’t let yourself be fooled by the assumption that effective managers are effective change leaders, too. They are not.

Bold step 5: Organise the change

Late William Bridges has greatly influenced my thinking about leading fundamental change. He makes a distinction between change and transition. Change is the tangible output of a process, and transition is the mental adaptation process to that change. During a transition, there is a period of dual experiences. Bridges calls this the neutral zone – the period when your world is not like it used to be anymore and when you’re not comfortable with the new situation either. This is similar to where we are right now: our lives are not like they used to be before COVID-19 and we are trying to find new solutions for our post-pandemic lives. One thing is for sure: downloading best practices from the past is useless, we need to come up with creative solutions that don’t exist yet.

It is a recipe for failure to manage the neutral zone within normal management structures and systems. These systems are about optimizing the current situation: improve efficiency, focus on quality, and above all deliver growth. Not the kind of performance indicators you want to look for right now. You have to facilitate change leaders to encourage exploration and learning. Simply put you have to organize the transition process apart from your daily operations.

Seize the momentum

Following this bold 5-steps process will help you and your colleagues explore your way into the new reality that COVID-19 has created for us. And for sure it will help you leverage the unique opportunities and learnings COVID provides us.

Want to know more about my experiences with the 5 bold steps approach? Subscribe to our newsletter or contact us directly