As the rise of the pandemic happened so much quicker than we expected, and is dissipating so much slower than we hoped for, changes that we had thought to be transitory in nature are fast becoming permanent fixtures in our every day lives.
Moreover, changes to our business models, practices, and products were already happening at accelerating rates before the "great pause" of 2020. But the pandemic has shrunk the breathing room that had been the refuge for the less change-inclined leader, and who continues to champion legacy-based practices that are losing their validity as quickly as employee patience is fading.
First came the technological accelerations that resulted from hybrid work accelerations and the reduced public social interactions...think Zoom, Doordash, and more. We're now in the throes of experiencing existential accelerations such as the meaning of life, work, and mortality that commonly occur later in life, when our achievements of material successes often lead to the questions of creating purpose...think the "Great Resignation."
At this juncture, no longer should anyone still be on the fence about clinging to outdated models of business that prioritize profits over people.
If what's holding you back from diving deep into your business fundamentals and resisting the breaking away from the "ways you've always done things,” consider the excerpt below from Ted Goya's case study, and consider that changes to even the most solid of paradigms are inevitable...
Excerpt:
"The problem isn’t a lack of good new music. It’s an institutional failure to discover and nurture it.
I learned the danger of excessive caution long ago, when I consulted for huge Fortune 500 companies. The single biggest problem I encountered—shared by virtually every large company I analyzed—was investing too much of their time and money into defending old ways of doing business, rather than building new ones. We even had a proprietary tool for quantifying this misallocation of resources that spelled out the mistakes in precise dollars and cents.
Senior management hated hearing this, and always insisted that defending the old business units was their safest bet. After I encountered this embedded mindset again and again and saw its consequences, I reached the painful conclusion that the safest path is usually the most dangerous. If you pursue a strategy—whether in business or your personal life—that avoids all risk, you might flourish in the short run, but you flounder over the long term. That’s what is now happening in the music business."
Source: Goya, T. (2022, January 22). Is Old Music Killing New Music? The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/01/old-music-killing-new-music/621339/
End of excerpt.
When we look around us, there are many examples of companies that are benefiting greatly from elevating their priorities toward their people. The question that proprietors should be asking themselves now is, "are our own leaders looking to discover and nurture new people-models in our businesses?"