Up until the outbreak of the coronavirus we had certain ways of doing things in companies, standard norms and processes — let’s call them life patterns. In other words, economic, social and political affairs dictated our everyday reality. But now that the coronavirus is impacting everything, we may not be able to go back to those same patterns for a while.
At the moment it’s not clear how big this will get, and what else it will force us to do. But one thing is certain, we are already seeing a clear trend of varying degrees of isolation throughout the world — more flights, conventions, and events are being cancelled every day.
Many things that we are used to doing for business development, are currently not an option. We are only seeing the beginning of the repercussions, but it will clearly impact normal business operations. Not to mention the significant financial losses that will force us to come up with new management strategies very quickly.
Whenever things get tough, we always have two choices —
#1 — We can wait and see what will happen, without trying to initiate something new — just go with the flow.
#2 — Or we can try to take some initiative on our own. As the saying goes — the wise person has his eyes in his head. Why? To see ahead into the future.
The second mode is far more ideal for companies and it is clear why — there is so much at stake. The economy includes all the elements of money, people and international ties. Most of our lives are directly impacted by what happens in that sector. When the stock exchange goes down, when workers can no longer go to their place of employment, if all physical contact is completely cancelled — how will we deal with the new virtual reality?
These and many other questions like this will require us to make changes. It is still too early to talk about what and how, but clearly we will need to deal with them in the near future. What future are we talking about? Ideally from this morning.
There are two things we can start with:
Standard preventive measures — carrying out everything the health ministries and other organizations require of us in a very responsible manner. With everything to do with quarantine, gatherings and any other demand that comes. We must be concerned with the wellbeing of the entire society or organization that we belong to, and this requires the full personal responsibility of each and every person to carry out these preventive measures. If everyone does their part, this will already calm down the spreading of the virus, and minimize unnecessary damage. If you haven’t already given your people clear instructions about this — do so today. And keep updating them on a regular basis.
Taking initiative — every organization must think about reorganizing its daily routines, and come up with a new general order. As our daily schedule shifts, we will suddenly discover that it is possible to do things differently. We will see how what we did yesterday is no longer that relevant in the current reality. This is a time for management teams to come together to see how to suit themselves to this new stage. No one really knows how long this will go on; perhaps a month or even a year. No one can really say and we shouldn’t wait for that to get moving. Every company must start brainstorming and coming up with ideas for dealing with the new hand the coronavirus has dealt us. At the moment, this is every single organization’s responsibility to itself, its suppliers, and customers.
Good Luck!