How can organisations work better and more easily in a time of crisis?

The Covid-19 pandemic was a shock and precipitated major changes to how we live, work and communicate. The crisis saw major adaptations implemented quickly but as we move into potentially recurring lockdowns and the need to further adapt for social distancing, further long term change will be required. Here we present a framework for moving forward, with as much consistency and reassurance as possible, towards sustainability for organisations and their communities.

When you’re barely able to cope or keep on top of things, change is hard. Any form of change requires you to try something new and that requires capacity and headspace, two things we feel a bit short of right now. However, we’re currently experiencing a lockdown ‘tax’ of sorts, slightly hamstrung by circumstances and previous decisions, ineffective processes and underutilised tools. So how do we ‘break out’? Or are we truly happy staying with the status quo?

As a colleague said last week, “It just feels like I’m walking through a dense wood without a compass or way out.”

One of the advantages of being an independent consultant (unpressured by day to day responsibilities) is the freedom to move around, read, think, share learning, concentrate investment on only the effective and meaningful and not get subsumed into organisational politics and ‘timesinks’. It offers headspace, an opportunity to reflect and an ability to share learnings from multiple sources and projects. So, as life after lockdown and the pursuit of sustainability become key issues, and as managers have to change their way of managing, what do organisations need and how can managers make the space? 

A framework and why it’s needed

So how do we go about it? Well, this is a proposed framework of four phases and it starts simple: 

1. Discovery - what are your key challenges and why are they important. It might kick off with a chat over coffee. 
2. Opportunities - what can you do differently or better (including quick wins) and what’s the plan, who’s doing it and when
3. Resolution - action, making change, driving forward, holding accountable
4. Results - demonstrating outcomes (our end goals) and realising and reinforcing the benefits

Organisations are suffering because the basics aren’t in place. Management doesn’t make time to think, issues go unresolved, systems are implemented hurriedly and carelessly, staff have few meaningful processes and usually inadequate training. Leaders and managers may be exceptional functional specialists but may lack core management skills, disciplines and focus (there will always be the temptation to get sucked into doing things).

Ideas arise but corners are cut. Projects aren’t managed, merely wandered through as unconnected unmeasured tasks without realistic objectives. The cult of busyness without accountability or impact (leading to increased vulnerability and burnout). Benefits and outcomes never realised. Material frustration with real cost (people time and frustration as well as cash) as things atrophy. It’s even harder right now because workforce capacity is strained meeting need and volume (both as services and people management) but if we don’t prioritise beyond firefighting, how will we ever make things better? 

It doesn’t need to be this way. It starts with making (a little) time, reflecting, planning, getting support and executing with discipline - the hallmarks of resilience.

I discovered a great definition of resilience (@Tom_c_watson) this week: “Resilience is about having the right foundational principles, having the right people, and making the best decisions you have with the information you have, and learning from every single thing good and especially bad.”

Let’s unpick that a little: 

1. We need principles to guide us and our decisions
2. The right people are important (but also how we support them to be the right people and act in the right way)
3. We need to make decisions (and act) based on the information available, not keep putting things off until later and that requires awareness of what’s really going on (not just what we assume is going on)
4. We need to learn from the good (what works, for us and what we can learn outside) and the bad (what we need to make better) 

Four points which might just get us out of the dense wood and may provide that very compass. Four points we can derive from the four phase Framework above and your existing strategy, mission and values – Discovery (to know where we are and make the information available for decisions), Opportunities (prioritised and underpinned by Principles and Decision Making), Resolutions (underpinned by people and learning) and Results (ensuring we learn and get the benefit from what we do).

A better way

“Design is the process for guiding the what and the how and reduces the risk of getting things wrong.”

This isn’t a call to simply rip up and throw away the existing ways of working or jump into a major change project. It’s a call to start a conversation, recognise what could be better and whether the investment in making it better is more important than keep doing things the current way. Whether making time to think and reflect and start changing will pay back quickly enough to make a big enough difference. Some things we will need to do differently anyway – social distancing and peoples’ fears will ensure that.

The environmental forces at work – wicked problems, moving targets, no idea what to shoot for, lack of money – have a trickle down effect on staff wellbeing, leading to exhaustion and the inability to get out of the funk.

It leads to the perception of it’s all too complicated, confusing and lacking guidance. When it comes to tools (or data), the lack of technology expertise and lack of commercial/operations roles lead to poorly delivered projects with long term adverse consequences. It needs direction, standards, good practice, how to and support.

And the good news is those resources and that support is out there. 

In order to be sustainable, we need to have a clear direction, resources, finance, tools, people, discipline, a roadmap and a means of measuring progress and ensuring progress. We can’t just keep lumbering on.

Cash flow is definitely an issue, but all organisations need to invest to survive. Choices need to be made.

Therefore, we propose the following as a way of moving your organisation through the four phases (from Discovery to Results) in a supported and sustainable fashion, with reassurance: 

1. An independent look – it starts with a conversation and being aware where you are (you might be pleasantly surprised how well you are doing)
2. A simple strategy and key principles – more about choices than complexity
3. A roadmap – what you’re going to do and when (and why)
4. Application of good practices and tools to improve internal operations and external facing services – the resources and learning are out there, fairly accessible and not too difficult to apply (often in bite sized chunks)
5. Investing in people, giving them the skills and confidence to use tools and practices and do things the ‘right way’
6. A driving accountability (or “keeping us honest” as a senior leader said to me this week) – we all need to keep momentum and a critical friend can help here
7. The reassurance that this will work, and we’ll get out of the wood – coaching, mentoring and the role of a critical friend

Awareness of where we are, clarity of direction, a roadmap, the right tools (and skills) used in the right ways, focus on outcomes and sustainability and keeping pushing forward - it’s about behaviours and resilient drive. Simply prioritising, innovating (the process of doing things differently to get better results), leading with humanity but being firm when needed.

How might we help?

We can offer (and have for many years), an independent perspective, a listening ear, the right amount and proportion of challenge and support, ensuring progress, change and accountability. 

But fundamentally whatever the activities in an organisation, there is a need for more tangible leadership, defined programme management, effective and honest collaboration (learning and sharing) and realising benefits - not spraying information, talking shops and rearranging the deckchairs as the ship lists around you.

Or as a wise person put it, “It’s ball breakingly boring but important.” 

We can ‘build back better’. We don’t need to struggle so much, and the world doesn’t need to look like this. But it starts with acknowledging the need to change and reaching out to get the support to make that happen. If we do invest the time, we will all (leaders, organisations, beneficiaries and communities) see the benefits.

(And of course, you can do this yourself, with friends and colleagues, but remember you don’t have to. That’s what a wider community of practice is for.) 

Thank you to Nigel Scott for inspiring the thinking and framework of this article and to Frances Post for her input and feedback on our original draft.