July 4th, 2020

INVITATION TO ACTION: Covid 19 has an undeniable dark side; join me and fellow critical friends in finding the silver lining

As an HR Director of a global media company and a business owner myself, I have been directly exposed to human tragedy almost every day since the end of February: colleagues falling seriously ill, relatives of colleagues passing away, evidence of domestic violence, people struggling with mental illness, colleagues from the LGBTQ+ community feeling vulnerable and threatened, parents not sleeping as they worry they might lose their job and not be able to feed their children, and colleagues facing trauma and sharing experiences of everyday racism as we watch #blacklivesmatter unfold. These are experiences that have affected me deeply to the core and I know you will have similar stories.

Whilst we clearly have a duty of care to address these challenges immediately, can we really look ourselves in the mirror and say that our responses are any more than immediate and superficial solutions, simply temporary fixes? What if we use these unprecedented times to find that silver lining and make it shine in all of our organisations? We owe our employees, our communities and our loved ones this commitment and those who will come after us.

If you feel similarly passionate about creating sustainable and financially healthily business environments in which people thrive, thereby being happy, successful and fulfilled, please reach out by leaving a comment below or email me (caroline.vanovermeire@effraconsult.com) and let’s form a powerful working group that collectively can create genius and share insights to make progress on core business fundamentals such as strategy, structure, culture and leadership and consequently, revisit our current people practices.  

More than words

It would make my heart sing, and hopefully yours too, if we would go beyond exchanging thoughts, and commit to action with clear tangible outputs attached so we can celebrate progress being made which we can all share and benefit from. Wherever the starting point, let’s question assumptions as critical friends (not sour grapes!), mature some of the current business principles organisations are existing upon, and move on to a brighter future. Let’s focus on making the cake bigger rather than slicing it.

Successes you may wish to adopt in your business

As a starter for ten, I have captured a few challenges and would like to share a few observations, viewpoints and actions I took since the Covid crisis with the aim to show duty of care for the long term and start the debate/movement:

1. Culture challenge: It is in crises like Covid that companies can choose to send a clear message about their culture and their purpose. I am proud that Dentsu Aegis Network choose to be a social caring organisation protecting as many jobs as possible and focussing on the wellbeing of their employees thereby acting in line with their deep rooted culture and DNA.

Solution: For that reason too, I initiated a Global Learning Community at the start of Covid. After just 2 months we have over 3000 people already participating in Live learning sessions and staying connected through a Learning Buddy system. The immediate benefit for people is to keep relevant through mind set and skills growth. They increase their desirability within the business and employability outside the organisation. People also widened their internal network and report that the community has helped with their well-being. The business benefits are equally noticeable in terms of it positively impacting a culture of high performance, learning, feedback and togetherness.

 

2. Structure challenge:If Covid has taught us one thing, it is that traditional structures and teams sitting geographically and/or physically together might be a thing of the past. People now realise that you can operate successfully and build trust virtually if everyone wants to make it work.

For consideration: A gloCal operating organisational model embedding social graph principles is therefore in my view what most organisations might want to evaluate themselves against. Mobility should be reviewed and interpreted more broadly to go beyond international assignments requiring uprooting and settling in a foreign country, and above all, that a traditional hierarchy is being questioned as the most effective lever to make change happen. There is a rise of community thinking. Work groups combining people from across traditional structures are silo-busting and being asked to collaborate to problem solve challenges related to adapted problems (see Heifetz , A survival guide for leaders, HBR June 2002) caused by Covid 19. Grassroot movements are getting momentum in acting on (cultural) changes. They are more unconventional in set up than the more deliberately designed and hand-picked change agent movements promoted by cultural change consultancies. We see matrix organisations being pivoted into social graphs organisations which is the operating model which made companies such as Facebook and LinkedIn very successful. It calls out for reviewing the balance between standardisation through centralisation and keeping a finger on the pulse, remaining relevant and avoid being tone deaf through decentralisation.

 

3. Leadership challenge:More so than ever we realise that authenticity and trust building are non-negotiable characteristics of modern leadership. Though Covid is surfacing additional requirements in my view.

For consideration: Showing the human behind the person occupying the role was and still is the only way to connect with the people you lead and create credibility and followership. What I have noticed in addition is the rise of 3 other characteristics:

1. Self-care and resilience: we all know as per the airplane safety instructions (remember those?) you must look after yourself first before you can tend to others.  Leaders/Executives have a duty of care to themselves as they are expected to perform against the accountability reflected in their pay grade and will need the resilience to find answers to steer the ship in untested, and for some very stormy, waters.
2. Inductive thinking and dealing with uncertainty is increasing in importance. A modern leader needs to see patterns to help finding the solutions to challenges we need to address in this new world. Experience and deducting from the past might no longer do the trick to provide the answers we require.
3. Inclusive Leadership.Innovation and inclusivity go hand in hand. We need to re-imagine to be equipped to operate in the post Covid era. Diversity of thought and therefore ensuring representation of all experiences, backgrounds, cultures, personalities and values systems is the only way to fuel innovation which will set us up to meet the demands of a consumer emancipated economy. A modern leader stands up for inclusivity.
4. Strategy challenge:  Let’s turn moral high ground and common sense into common practice to make businesses thrive and create a happiness economy where purpose comes before profit. I have observed during Covid that many people are going back to questioning the basics. Many comment on the fact that they realise that finding meaning in life/work is acting upon a fundamental human need they have. They choose happiness over success as the ultimate pursuit. This can be achieved at individual level though leaders could make this equally happen at organisational level through reflection on the vision and the business strategy.

For consideration: Purpose before profit. It will eventually become a no-brainer even for the more conventional thinking business leaders when this movement, already supported by 2600 corporations, including Ben & Jerry’s, Patagonia to name just a few, and supported by business heavy weights such as Paul Polman (Ex CEO Unilever) and Jamie Dimon (CEO JP Morgan Chase) gathers further momentum and become standard (accountancy or investor evaluation) practice.

Businesses who appear to prioritise shareholder return and financial metrics are seeing more and more reputational risk creeping in and start to encounter difficulties to sustain their (profit) growth trajectory as originally thought compared to those who take note of all stakeholders involved in their ecosystem (clients, employees, suppliers, society as well as shareholders) and pursue purpose. The latter pursue financial health as a means to an end though stop short from seeing it as the end goal. #Blacklivesmatters show that society is ready for structural change. The current pledge to halt advertising on Facebook by some of the world’s most iconic brands – Coca-Cola, Unilever, Verizon, and the Levi Strauss & Co. – is a sign too that the corporate world is increasing its change readiness. Client centricity and employee centricity have always been underlying key principles though their interconnectedness needs to be better operationalised. This shouldn’t be difficult since they are driven by similar principles and therefore measured in the same way. Examples here are Net Promotor Value and an employees’ engagement scores; Share of wallet and employees’ performance scores; customer and employee retention.

What do you think?

Above are just some of my thoughts. Some were informed by others when sharing common challenges. I hope that some of these could prompt to help other peers review some of their People and Talent activities throughout the whole employee lifecycle and work towards true business transformation.

Please join me in this call of action to create a movement that will leave our people, communities and loved ones in better shape and truly grasp the silver lining touching our fingertips as we cling on during this #coronacoaster ride of 2020.

Please leave a comment or email : caroline.vanovermeire@effraconsult.com