According to the “Resilience Pulse Check: Harnessing Collaboration to Navigate a Volatile World” report by the World Economic Forum published a few weeks ago, markets and companies are facing the need for increasing their internal capacity for responding to the increasing levels of financial and operative risk, resulting from ever more complex political and economic dynamics.
With a revealing figure, this analysis shows how 84% of companies report that they do not have sufficient preparation for effectively managing these environmental challenges. This translates into the need for consolidating key capabilities such as agility in decision making, the empowerment of teams and collaborative work beyond silos.
But having these skills within the organization is no longer enough. It is necessary to develop a culture that is capable of facing this reality, which becomes a fundamental lever for the survival of the business.
Given the foregoing, a priority for the next three years is the development of a culture of anticipation, agile response and resilience. Without a doubt, it is a short time for achieving significant changes; nevertheless, there are tools that can help us improve the capacity for transforming the organization and, above all, to move forward quickly:
» 1. Kill bureaucracy at all costs
Beyond how demoralizing a bureaucratic environment is, the biggest problem lies in the fact that it is the greatest enemy of innovation. Companies that suffer from this internal paralysis lose the ability to focus on what is important because they are “filling out documents and completing tasks” that do not create value.
This topic cannot be addressed timidly, it must be eliminated completely, as the organizational structure will tend to justify all of those activities in order to avoid change.
What to do?
Quarterly simplification sessions: Quick internal agreements can be reached using simple analysis tools, and can translate into “early victories” and improve the fluidity of processes.
Communication comes after simplification, if you communicate beforehand, you will receive an avalanche of justifications for maintaining the status quo. Communication, however, must be focused on the people that “lose” with the change, as they are the main antagonists and the manner in which they are involved and are handled will have an influence on the trust of the rest of the organization.
» 2. Eradicate fear as a control mechanism
Organizational resilience arises from trust. When companies face errors or negative results they have two paths: focus on blame or focus on the solution.
What to do?
Opportunity incubator: It is common for companies to have mechanisms for hearing the ideas of their collaborators for improving the company’s processes; these, however, often remain as unimplemented ideas.
An opportunity incubator makes good use of developing talent (talent incubators, for example) and provides a proper platform for testing solutions and proposals, doing this on a small scale. Once the necessary objective is reached, this same team is prepared as “influencers” on the new way of doing things, achieving a greater speed for changes.
» 3. Credibility as an antidote
Being honest and authentic in the intention of achieving cultural change becomes an essential element to obtain support. Communication campaigns on culture changes need to be direct and specific in regard to what has to change and when. And, beyond that, coherence between the message that “everything will be better after the change” has to match the reality, at least for the majority of people.
What to do?
Instant decision squad: change initiatives are often fractured because responses are slow to arrive or, even worse, they arrive, but they are completely disjointed and misaligned. Having a small team of people with the role of “closing ranks” when obstacles to transformation appear means that, even when being wrong about some things and right about others, it is possible to move forward and make corrections quickly.
With simple and powerful tools activated by prepared leaders that are convinced about the transformation, change will be more tangible. This is why the focus of the transformation must be on the people, more than on the organization. Lastly, it is when teams start feeling that they gain confidence for trying alternatives, making mistakes with an objective and communicating with trust that the ground for evolution is ready for adopting new ways of working.
