Covid-19 has been a painful reminder of how precious time with our colleagues is; and how easy it is to flippantly say that managing through Zoom is the same as managing in person because it isn’t.
This doesn’t mean managing can’t feel better in some ways (a friendly face), higher frequency of touches, and likely more availability at the touch of a button. But those are also huge issues, too, intruding on people’s work time, private space, and misreading body language because you are both experiencing each other in one dimension. You can’t feel body language; you cannot feel environmental context; you cannot feel or interpret the moment very well. For example, are there kids running around in the background? Are they in the middle of eating lunch, or have they handled a domestic issue simultaneously as work? Are they or you able to talk about something challenging and uncomfortable on a screen? These are daily dilemmas we have all faced, but they sculpt the working world of now and tomorrow in five simple ways.
In a world where being mutually responsible to each other was a measured digital DNA indicator for ... [+]
Talent, time, and energy are the new winning formulas for leadership.
Remember one straightforward one truth. We still have to perform and deliver against pre-Covid-19 financial and organizational metrics in a Covid-19 world. Net promoter scores, quarter-end sales closes, margin models, innovation agendas, customer-centric inputs, etc. none of these have changed as we move through a world of primarily virtual interactions. Inside and outside of our organizations. An article in Harvard Business Review as early as December 2020; “The Pandemic Is Widening a Corporate Productivity Gap,” by Eric Garton and Michael Mankins, argues that:
“The companies that are the very best at managing scarce time, talent, and energy — that is, the average of the top quartile of companies in our research — are 40% more productive than the rest (the average of the remaining three quartiles). This enormous productivity gap is a key source of competitive advantage for the very best companies.”
Think more about the models we have used before Covid-19, do more, do it with less time and run ever more efficiently. The research from Garton and Mankins argues that expecting better by doing more is not the solution. As leaders, we must manage this new triangle of energy, time, and talent and not attempt to do more with the same model as before. In a world where being mutually responsible to each other was a measured digital DNA indicator (index score of 275) for success, this is the moment to learn from the Zoom experience and use it as a lever. (Learn more about this from the Wall Street Journal best-seller, The Digital Helix)
Customer centricity is more elusive than ever before, so we need to invest even more towards it and pay more attention to the signals that come from it.
Ask yourself one simple question. Are you closer with a customer now than before when you could do meetings in person? The answer is very likely to be no. Customer’s worlds have changed too; patterns for their consumption of information have to be changing too. This means getting closer to customers is far more demanding than it has ever been. Customers have moments a digital DNA component that was two times more closely linked to success before the pandemic is now exponentially more important than ever before. The gaps we conquered previously that we compensated for with the power of in-person connections will grow and change unless we become increasingly customer-centric right now.
Society needs more digital listening and more moments for interaction coupled with a greater focus on the idea of themes and streams of information (another digital DNA component) and at least a thousand percent (might be an exaggeration) sensitivity to customer signals and insights to drive our actions. Are you cutting back on listening and interacting with customer insights when you should be doubling, tripling, or even quadrupling the need for it?
A virtual Zoom call focusing on customer insights and intimacy, opportunities for human connection ... [+]
Leadership in a post-Covid-19 world is already radically different as we still converge work and home environments in an almost fluid manner. A-Zoom call world has taught us that we need to invest even more in understanding how our customers are thinking, feeling, and acting than ever before. It will also lead us to invest more time in relationships with our teams and colleagues, even when there is less time to do it than before.
The evolution of leadership has forever shifted with the reactions to Covid-19. Quite simply, this was a transformative moment or opportunity, and if you have not adjusted or evolved, ask yourself why? Managing a team in the virtual Zoom time and space or in person will still need to develop as a virtual room or Zoom world is forcing us to see what we need to increasingly focus on customer insights and intimacy, opportunities for human connection and efficiency over just a greater volume of work. Plenty of research has shown how much more work we are all doing each day (48 minutes more a day according to recent research in the UK, mentioned on the BBC). We should be focusing on what needs to change with those minutes, hours, and days,
If investing in customer-centricity is just one of the many lessons we all learn from the Covid-19 and Zoom world, I hope we all embrace it.
