What started in December as a restricted Chinese healthcare problem, soon became a global healthcare and economical issue.
First the world economy was impacted due to the dependancy of western companies on the Chinese production and transportation processes. Later when the COVID-19 was detected in Italy and aggressively spread across Europe and later US, it became a Global Health and Economical Crisis forcing Governments to take drastic measures to minimalize the spread of the virus and reduce the impact on the economy.
Currently we are experiencing the highest sense of urgency, where travels and flights are banned, social distancing is advisable and remote working is becoming the norm. This crisis situation is triggering the survival instinct of us as human beings resulting in e.g. hoarding behaviour in the grocery shops. At the same time business leaders are forced to be pragmatic and courageous to lead their organisation through this crisis.
As a business leader and role model I am feeling privileged that I am able to recognize the situation where we are in, and that I have been trained to become a transformational leader for this type of situations. During our OneMBA course at RSM we have been trained in a global environment where remote working was key to be able to collaborate with our global peers from the other universities from China, Mexico, Brazil and US. This experience has formed my mindset and provided me with the knowledge and expertise necessary to switch easily from a physical on-site to a remote work environment.
By reflecting the situation, I can conclude that most organizations have difficulties to manage this switch forced by the crisis. Most of the organisations claim that they are digital pioneers, innovation driven or tech-enable, but when it comes to change they don’t have a digital mindset and the most important aspect is that they are not prepared and able to use the technology available to stimulate a remote way of working. Organisations are implementing cloud solutions and platforms, but the company culture or strategy is not in place to stimulate virtual working. This is one of the main reasons why technological innovations fail most of the time. Generally speaking people don’t like change and if there is no sense of urgency, the new technologies are not accepted or used properly.
I want to encourage fellow leaders to be brave, step forward and take the lead to guide your team and organisation through this difficult time. Use the governmental guidelines to define new policies and procedures to be an e-working ready organisation. It is now the time to walk the talk and use the opportunity to take proper actions to transform the company mindset and culture. Feel free to share your opinions and actions you have already taken to stimulate others and become the force of change.
I am wondering if you are able to answer the following questions and share your thoughts:
What is your company current mindset related to e-working (remote working)?
Do you have the network and tools available to be able to work properly from anywhere?
What are you doing as an individual to stimulate change?
Thanks for your time to read this article and share your thoughts. Stay safe and take care of your family and your team and colleagues!
Article published by Rigo Selassa, Managing Director & Transformational Leader
