Bah humbug!
I’m tired of hearing about how much business and leadership is going to change in the “World 2.0.” It’s not. The fundamental principles of good business transcend the effects of COVID-19, the shift to work from home, new technologies, and all the other changes we’re living with now.
To be sure, if you own cruise ships, an airline, or a live concert venue, you’ll have to deal with serious changes to your business models for a while. Until we have either a vaccine for COVID-19 or inexpensive and rapid testing (results within 15 minutes or less), the fundamentals have truly changed. But notwithstanding the very real disruption caused by the pandemic, if you’re not in the experience economy—and most of us aren’t—it’s not, in the words of the Hamilton musical, “the world turned upside down.”
If you look closely at the advice that’s being trotted out in leading business publications, you’ll see that aside from mentions of the pandemic, these articles could have been written a year ago or a decade ago. Adam Bryant, in strategy+business, informs us that if we want remote work to be effective,
leaders have to communicate more and be extra vigilant about removing as much ambiguity as they can from their exchanges with staff, particularly in email, in which the recipients don’t have the benefit of hearing the sender’s tone. Leaders have to ensure that what is clear to them is also clear to others, in language that doesn’t leave people scratching their heads.
Anyone who has dealt with the interpersonal brush fires arising from all caps emails over the past decade—and who hasn’t?—knows that this is not a new problem. And what leader hasn’t been told ad nauseum that it’s impossible to over-communicate with the troops.
Stanford business school professors Bob Sutton and Huggy Rao helpfully remind leaders that in these trying times leaders should avoid passing the buck; show compassion to employees; offer predictability to the company; watch their body language; create community; build psychological safety; and look for new business opportunities. It may be true that it’s more difficult to do these things when employees are remote, but show me any company that thrives when leaders won’t take responsibility for their decisions, create an environment of fear, or ignore new market openings.
Not to be left out of the rush to platitudes, the Darden business school at the University of Virginia enjoins us to “get back to BASICS,” their acronym for Bonding, Agility, Safety, Inclusion, Compassion, and Strategic Alignment.
Even McKinsey gets in the banal insight game with the observation that speed is more important than ever in the post-COVID-19 era. To that end, they offer the following gobsmackingly obvious advice:
Speed up and delegate decision making.
Step up execution excellence.
Flatten the structure.
Unleash nimble, empowered teams.
Learn how to learn.
Presumably, these recommendations are offered to those leaders who otherwise were planning on slowing down decision making by populating towering bureaucracies with sclerotic teams who don’t like to learn.
The changes business leaders face today are not as cataclysmic as the move from the barter system to capitalism, the invention of the microprocessor, or the rise of globalization. Office workers may work from home more often, but offices will be fundamentally the same, just with better ventilation, more space for workers, and Keurig K-cups instead of open coffee pots. Manufacturing plants will still have human beings assembling products, even if they’re wearing personal protective equipment. And with or without Zoom meetings, leaders will still have to communicate, execute on their plans, and unleash the creativity and intelligence of their employees.
Bill Belichick, the legendary coach of the NFL’s New England Patriots, was asked how he was adjusting his training camp to the new health protocols of the COVID-era. He answered, “I don’t think it’s monumental. But certainly there are adjustments, none of which are, I would say, particularly inhibiting.”
The challenges you’re facing are real. However, they’re not so extraordinary that you can’t surmount them with the same grit, determination, intuition, and commitment that have enabled you to succeed up to now. Stick to the basics, and you’ll be fine in the World 2.0—and even the World 3.0.