Adapting to Thrive: The Great Debate

Much has been written about adapting to the new normal. How businesses and organisations shouldn’t be thinking about ‘returning’ but instead about ‘evolving’ or even revolutionising.

Reading the latest McKinsey piece on this area reminded me of a hockey match I once played in. It was a fairly significant match for the team I was part of. Our aim was to win, and we had worked hard at developing a specific game plan to achieve this. The plan was based on a high tempo, pass-heavy game, which would play to our strengths: fitness; strong communication; and great awareness of each other.

At the end of the first half, all was going well. We were 3-0 up, playing well, feeling confident and in the zone.

However, with five minutes left before full time, we found ourselves at 3-3. Something totally unexpected had happened in the intervening period. Something that was not predicted, that we hadn’t foreseen, and for which our game plan was totally unsuitable.

What was this?

A freak storm, that came out of nowhere. It wasn’t forecast. We hadn’t built it into our approach. And it made our game plan totally redundant. We couldn’t see each other, could barely hear each other, and no one was able to move very far, and certainly not very fast. And we didn’t adapt quickly enough. Letting in three goals over 30 minutes.

Thankfully, we had a very good captain. With five minutes to go, she brought us all together. Reminded us of our objective (to win). Reminded us that we were capable of doing so. Reminded us of our Values (resilience, accountability and team). But told us that we had to adapt. Our planned strategy and tactics were no longer going to work. We had to change our strategy, and the tactics we used to implement this. We did so, we scored with two minutes to go, and came out wet, cold but grateful winners.

This picks up on the ‘fixed but flexible’ theme that McKinseys, and many other Consultants are talking about at the moment. The fixed part is your purpose, your cause. Done well, this is: clear; compelling; inclusive; idealistic; and something that can inspire and motivate both your own people and those you collaborate with. It is your company’s North Star.

But as Thomas Edison famously said:

“Vision without execution is merely hallucination.”

So you put together a plan, a strategy, to work towards your purpose. That plan might be over a period of years, with a specific objective in mind, strategies to achieve this, and what this will look like on the ground in terms of activities (tactics). The plan will often include milestones, key measurements, critical success factors, key enablers etc. But, a strategy is just a hypothesis. It reflects what you believe, after a lot of hard work and analysis, will enable your organisation to achieve its objective(s). All in pursuit of your cause/purpose. As one well-known CEO once said:

“Strategies are just a guessing game for a future reality that is impossible to predict”

This chimes brilliantly with the popular HBR Article on Strategy, published in 2017, which argues that your strategy should be a hypothesis that you constantly adjust. https://hbr.org/2017/11/your-strategy-should-be-a-hypothesis-you-constantly-adjust (I strongly recommend a read of this article - it contains a brilliant examination of the perils of sticking rigidly to a strategy which is clearly not working, using the Volkswagen clean diesel case study among others).

In sport there is a popular expression: ‘play the ball at your feet’. This is what we had to do in the hockey match I described above. And this is what organisations are having to do now.

Whilst their purpose or cause is fixed, so much will have to change. The conditions in which you are ‘playing’ are so different from when you held that off-site planning meeting all those months ago. Are your current organisational objectives still valid? Does your current strategy still work?

So what are the things that need to change, and how can you best approach this?

So what are the areas for which you are finding the need to alter your game plan? They probably encompass some or all of the following:

  • priority areas;

  • people;

  • ways of operating (including greater use of technology, and many fewer meetings…..);

  • collaborations;

  • decision-making; and

  • critical success measurements/key performance indicators.

In terms of approach, there are all sorts of recommendations from the likes of Deloitte, McKinsey etc. In essence, it boils down to:

  • information gather (data really is your friend, as are quality conversations);

  • analyse (carefully - it’s easy to draw incorrect conclusions);

  • reconfigure.

This process should enable you to adapt your strategy in the best way possible, locking in the reactive changes you have made that you need to keep, continuing to stay vigilant and responsive, and ensuring that you can leverage any new trends that give you a competitive advantage (eg environment, sustainability).

So use your Purpose/Cause as your north star. Use it as a constant reminder of why you are doing what you are doing. Use your Values to drive your approach and behaviours (see here for more on this). But don’t get despondent about the changes you are having to make to your strategy. As a hypothesis it was probably very good at the time you made it. But you will win through this current period by being brave enough to realise that change is not only necessary, it’s a strength. It is your ability to listen, learn and adapt that will drive your organisation’s future, and ensure that you can continue to work towards your Purpose/Cause.

Insight, Leadership, PerformanceCatherine BAKER1 Comment