Businesses are bound to face problems over time. However, the global pandemic is a different kind of issue that truly challenged many business leaders. While many decided to transition to fully online operations to keep their businesses afloat, others had to shut down their doors.
The business leaders that survived and thrived despite the crisis were those who chose the best possible course of action while considering flexibility. For instance, they made data-driven decisions, took advantage of new developments, and looked for opportunities amid the crisis. This made them effective entrepreneurs during a time of uncertainty.
These business owners demonstrated strategic agility, which is the ability to appropriately and quickly respond to change while staying focused and flexible. To learn more about how to nurture a strategically agile organisation, here are some tips you should follow:
1. Implement Practices That Build Resilience
This pandemic is indeed a unique time. Since everyone has to deal with the challenges associated with the health crisis, it’s not uncommon for your team members to struggle with stress, burnout, and other mental health issues.
While seeking therapy and professional help is still the best solution for your employees, you can help them recover from pandemic-related setbacks by implementing practices that build resilience, such as coaching, meditating, and setting OKRs. Doing this can help reduce their mental distress symptoms and encourage them to concentrate more and be more present.
2. Discuss Strategic Priorities
To ensure your business keeps thriving despite the pandemic-related uncertainties, your team members have to understand your organisation’s strategic priorities. This is the only way to align with your company goals and prevent vague concepts to sound like meaningless corporate jargon.
Communicate these priorities and refresh your employees’ memories by doing a three-part conversation. Explain what a priority actually means in your organisation, discuss why those priorities are important and what are their roles, and give instructions for how they can uphold those priorities.
3. Upskill Your Workforce
Business leaders with a clear vision of where things are headed are meant to find success. They have innovation plans because they know what their customers want today and what they will need in the future. To prepare for such a demand, they know the importance of upskilling.
Although you had to make lots of cuts last year due to the crisis, delaying professional development even in the middle of a pandemic could make your workforce lose its competitive edge. For this reason, it’s essential to invest in employee education. Some training you have to prioritise are hard skills that are in high demand, like cloud computing, artificial intelligence, blockchain, and data analysis. Also, don’t forget to focus on honing soft skills, such as critical thinking and emotional intelligence.
If you currently have a limited budget for professional development, you can still help your team members learn by holding training sessions and sending out informational videos. Your employees can also lead discussions on various topics regularly.
Conclusion
As the pandemic drags on, making operational changes is no longer enough. The only way to survive long term and gain a competitive advantage is to have strategic agility. This is especially crucial now that the future is uncertain. By following these tips, you can implement this important leadership skill in your organisation.
Grow your business despite uncertainty and overcome challenges by subscribing to SKILLFIRE. We create a transformative movement from within and enable you to live productively and healthily by holding strategic agility training. Contact us so we can help you nurture a high-impact workplace!