How has your organization’s resilience been tested by COVID-19?
https://www.nist.gov/baldrige/
In the Quest for Excellence Conference™ earlier this month, Bob Fangmeyer, Director of the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program at NIST, encouraged participants to think about resilience, not so much as “bouncing back but bouncing forward,” achieving performance that surpasses your baseline when the pandemic first started. My first reaction was, “Wait! Don’t we get credit for pivoting and surviving?!” But then I thought, “Why should we settle for what was, rather than aiming for a higher level of performance? What have we learned that should work on our behalf in that pursuit?”
Different Levels of Resilience
I think there are different levels of resilience we need to attend to. The first is personal resilience. What got interrupted by the pandemic? Had we planned to return to school or pick up some additional education? Were we more fit when we could go to gyms and play sports with other people where social distancing isn’t possible? Did we read more and watch less television and binge less on streaming videos?
On the other hand, did not eating out force us to eat healthier, cook more, and savor the mealtime with our families? Did we finally realize that all of us have too many shoes? And have we now been undeniably confronted with the enormous health care inequity in our country and the equally urgent need for justice reform?
Leadership Resilience
As a leader, what have you learned during this pandemic? Many of our clients described significant changes they have made regarding communication with their employees as well as their customers. The changes include increased frequency, transparency, and timeliness. They spoke of the need to find ways to be personal and caring while working remotely. When Zoom meetings became the norm, they found ways to keep people engaged and committed to the organization – both employees and customers.
Leaders also found ways to both engage their local communities as well as support them. At first, we thought this was primarily evident in the health care industry, but we’ve heard examples now across industries, including a small manufacturer in the high-tech space.
Organizational Resilience
The world has changed. The economy has changed. The climate has changed. And we still aren’t sure what lies ahead in the “new normal.” Now would be a prime time to conduct a PESTLE analysis as you plan for bouncing forward. The acronym stands for
– Political factors,
– Economic factors,
– Social factors,
– Technology factors,
– Legal factors, and
– Environmental factors.
I can’t imagine that any of these factors haven’t been impacted over the past year.
So now would be a great time to harness the Baldrige Core Value and Principle of Agility and conduct a PESTLE analysis regardless of where you are in your regular strategic planning cycle. It would also be a great time to engage your employees, customers, partners, and collaborators in this exercise to get their views on what is changing.
How are you going to bounce forward?
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