It’s probably safe to say that your organisation has never been as supercharged as it has been in the year of Covid.
Daily, I hear stories from clients about quick-fire decisions, brilliant ideas put straight into practice and – best of all – the relaxing of bureaucratic blocks.
Even the ATO, not an institution known for nimbleness or creativity, has shredded some of its red tape by simplifying its working from home deductions for those of us set up at the kitchen table.
Presumably, the tax office took a good look at the time and effort involved in calculating hours and gas and lights and computers, assessed their administrative and legal position, and decided it was worth the risk to streamline their reporting systems.
Take Advantage Of The Transformation You’ve Instigated
Coronavirus has stimulated so much shazam, so much innovation and productivity. What people are asking me now is how can we bottle this?! How can organisations capture the change, the responsiveness and the agility, and use it to power future work?
But what about this for a slightly different take…
You don’t need to save this energy and drive to cash in later, because it was there in your organisation all along.
A more strategic move would be to look at what was holding you and your organisation back in pre-corona times:
• What are the bureaucratic dams that blocked innovation and nimbleness?
• And how did they get there in the first place?
Why Wasn’t Your Business Always Like This?
From my work as a personal coach, I know that many of us use drama to cover up underlying issues. The issues might be lack of capacity, insecurity, old-fashioned fear, or something similar. Drama provides a smoke screen for avoiding the underlying issue.
In a workplace, rules and regulations, policies and procedures, can also prevent you from addressing the real issue – and they can come from exactly the same place.
Are Your Workplace Regimes Too Strict?
There are great reasons for guidelines and procedures, don’t get me wrong. Of course you need to keep your work strategic and completed to the standards of your industry.
BUT – if your rules are too strict, your guidelines too limiting, your policies too infantilising, you might just be limiting the potential of your organisation to the size of your own fears. Your fears of risk, or litigation, or growth, or…
AND the million-dollar question is – were those fears even real?
How Can You Bottle Your Momentum?
To promote continued momentum, take a look at your policies and procedures. Consider when it was written, and what was going on for the organisation and/or the person who wrote it at the time.
These questions might help you look into the deepest wells of your workplace regulations:
• Did your policies and procedures evolve in response to crises, or were they created through strategic planning?
• What do your systems enable, and what do they limit?
• And how can you change them to make sure your business is as fluid and responsive as it has been under coronavirus? (There may be some hints here.)
By removing a few dams and maximising flow, you should be able to keep the corona-creativity running for a good while yet.