Elijah Litheko | Council Member | University of KwaZulu-Natal | mail me |
The global economy has been disrupted severely by the outbreak of the coronavirus, also referred to as COVID-19. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the virus originated in the city of Wuhan in the province of Hubei, in China around December 2019.
The virus has since spread across the globe causing panic in its wake because of its contagious nature with fatal consequences. On the 11th of March 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus a global pandemic and raised a concern in relation to its spread and severity.
Health risk
It pointed out that lack of action from governments in response to this pandemic will pose a health risk to people globally.
It’s Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, however, indicated that ‘all countries still can change the course of the pandemic‘ if they could put systems and processes in place to detect, test, treat, isolate, trace and mobilise their people in response.
Indications are that the South African government heard and understood the call to action from WHO loud and clear, as evidenced by the following actions:
- On Monday 21 March 2020, President Ramaphosa announced to the nation that with effect from midnight on Thursday 26 March 2020, the country will be on a 21 days lockdown until midnight on 26 April 2020 as provided for in the Disaster Management Act.
- Government interaction with social partners, including civil society and faith based organisations.
- Deployment of the police and army to monitor general compliance of the lockdown.
- Setting up of the Solidarity Fund.
- Testing and isolation of affected people.
- Putting health facilities and health-workers under alert and other related measures ( more details available here).
- On Thursday 9 April 2020, President Ramaphosa in a public address to the nation extended the lockdown period by a further two weeks to 30 April 2020 and gave a detailed motivation for such a course of action.
“Over the past five weeks, we have witnessed a near exponential growth in the number of new cases, reaching almost every country, territory and area.”
– WHO Director-General’s statement on 1 April 2020
This is a clear indication that this pandemic knows no boundaries nor is it concerned about social status. It impacts people at all levels – employees, managers, business executives, public servants, professionals across all sectors of the economy – hence the government’s timely response.
A new world culture of collaboration and sharing
People across the world are hoping that a sustainable cure to this virus will be found, thereby curbing its spread and destabilising effect.
Commendable initiatives and interventions that demonstrate high levels of empathy, compassion, generosity and caring attitude are beginning to emerge all over the world in a spirit of solidarity.
This spirit of solidarity might be ushering a new world culture of collaboration and sharing where everybody knows that he/she is a welcome member of the society with a role to play. With this context in mind let us now consider the impact of the pandemic and the lockout on business operations.
It is clear that since the proclamation of the lockdown, economic activity in South Africa and across the world has been severely affected – all business transactions except for essential services and retail outlets selling groceries and medicine have all come to a halt with some conducted remotely.
Very few business leaders were prepared for this dramatic change to the way they have been running their businesses. The type of change facing them now is different from any that they have managed in the past as due to the increased level of uncertainty that this pandemic has caused.
Redirecting organisations during uncertain times
I have been researching these developments and have come across the ideas below which I believe could assist business leaders in redirecting their organisations during these uncertain times.
Firstly, it is important to acknowledge that to thrive during periods of uncertainty one does not have all the answers and control. It is a willingness to trust and build together and be flexible.
“The greatest thing an organisation can do during periods of uncertainty is to lead toward a greater and greater capacity to handle unpredictability, and with it, a greater capacity to love and care about other people.”
– Margaret Wheatley, Researcher in Organisational Behaviour
“For the last few years, I have been studying how to develop the capacity to deal with uncertainty – to find the possibilities and opportunities within the unknown, rather than to panic and retreat from risk.”
– Nathan Furr, Researcher
What these two researchers in human and organisational behaviour are confirming is the following:
- That there is no need for leaders of organisations to panic when faced with uncertainty but to remain calm.
- That with uncertainty comes opportunities, possibilities and lessons that need to be explored further and leveraged.
- That abnormal levels of uncertainty require a different strategic response from business leaders to ensure the continuity of their organisations.
Repositioning the organisation
Below, I would like to share two possible approaches that could assist business leaders in navigating uncertain environments to ensure the continued existence of their organisations.
The first will focus on repositioning the organisation:
- Ensure that all executives and key stakeholder have a full grasp of the realistic view of the organisation’s current state. This will require the development a clear baseline of the company’s current position and shared with key stakeholders.
- Develop scenarios for multiple versions of the organisation’s future. These scenarios are based on the assumptions made by the executive team as to how things may turn out under different conditions in the future. Some of these scenarios in response to the implications of the lockdown, might be based on the assumption that both management and employees will forgo their annual increases and bonuses for one/two years as a way of saving jobs and ensuring business continuity. Another assumption might hinge on government bailout and so forth.
- Establish the organisation’s posture and broad direction of future travel. This would require developing strategic and tactical responses to evolving new set of circumstances to ensure forward momentum in the midst of uncertainty.
- Determine actions and strategic moves that are robust across scenarios. This would require the development of a portfolio of strategic moves that will perform relatively well as a collective across all likely scenarios, even if a move isn’t a winner on its own.
- Set trigger points that will activate the organisation’s leadership to act at the right time. In a fast changing world there is no perfect plan – an acknowledgement that the plan will require constant adaptation as new information emerges. Thus, an ability to recognise signals or triggers is critical to enable a speedy adaptation of the plan.
The above process supported by continuous learning culture will help leaders in organisations to detect systems/processes/policies/procedures that are not suited in an environment characterised by high levels of uncertainty and review them accordingly to ensure the elimination of waste.
Embedding a learning culture
Embedding a learning culture is the second critical feature of strong leadership during periods of uncertainty.
A learning culture encompasses the following:
- Ability to detect and correct errors.
- Continuous improvement informed by new insights.
- Commitment to using the broad skills of the workforce at all levels.
- Willingness to let go of practices and processes that do not add value.
- Adoption of structures and strategies designed to enhance and maximise organisational learning.
- Instituting a knowledge management system that will ensure the retention of institutional memory.
- Acknowledgement that questioning and/or modifying existing practices, procedures, policies and objectives is part of the organisation’s growth and market positioning.
- Continuous environmental scan to identify opportunities that the organisation can pursue and the threats that need to be avoided.
The coronavirus and the resultant lockdown has presented all of us with an opportunity to turn the ‘winter of despair into the spring of hope’ and I am confident that business leaders have the capacity to do this.