It has been a crazy last few weeks. I don’t recall at any time in my working life seeing teams pull together in such a collaborative, remote-working way, operating in such a challenging and demanding operational environment, and delivering an outcome that is so collaborative and enterprise-wide. Despite working with the terrible threat of COVID-19 and the awful ramifications of it, with the desperately sad and sombre implications it brings. However, despite all of that, I have heard our clients say, “I can’t believe what we have achieved”!

They then go on to say…

“We never would have imagined what we have achieved in the last few weeks. We have pulled together and run this in a way where we thought it would not have been possible or feasible to achieve these outcomes and deliver what we have.”

I hope that, for you reading this, you have had the same experiences and are starting to come through this, seeing some light at the end of the tunnel on how to work in this new way of working. If you are still struggling and need help please do read our last blog post if you have not seen it or read it already.

So where do we go from here? Why have fantastic heroic efforts happened that go beyond comprehension to achieve a common goal and set of results?  The only thing I can put it down to is that, in a crisis, many of us act in ways of personal sacrifice, personal risk-taking, working outside our comfort zones, and generally throwing caution to the wind. We challenge the status quo, we ask questions and don’t accept no for an answer. We ask why and how more frequently. We smash through processes that blocked our way for the common good, we break down barriers and make ‘IT’ (whatever ‘IT’ is), a success.

Over the last two weeks, I have personally learnt a lot, and I am also sure that many others have done the same and now have the ‘so what happens next?’ question. I want to start today a series of blog posts that starts to describe under a common title “Coping with the new normal”. I will try to post each week/two weeks an update and reflection on what, from our perspective at CoStratify, we are seeing, how the new normal looks, what it is turning out to be, how people are dealing with it and how thinking is evolving.

Today I just wanted to reflect with you all and gather feedback on why heroic efforts have succeeded, why processes have been thrown to the wind, what makes us all different in a crisis, and how that energy can be pragmatically directed toward change for good that makes future change easier. For example, getting rid of that horrible, time-consuming process, removing inefficiency, and challenging the status quo that so many of you have done in the last few weeks.  I personally want everyone to remove that phrase from their vocabulary: “we have always done it that way”. The last few weeks have proven you are allowed to break that! We should move on with this same energy and vigour and harness what we have to make a change.

I look forward to sharing thoughts over the coming weeks on how we can harness this energy and appetite for change to make a difference and make this new way of working the new Business As Usual. Many of us will know people who have had COVID-19 or are suffering from the tragic loss of loved ones, and it goes without saying that we must respect what has happened and is still happening.

Looking forward, though, please do watch out for my next two articles : 

If my business continuity way of working is the new business-as-usual… what happens next?

Basing decisions on evidence and statistics is even more important to drive continuous improvement in this new way of working.

Thanks for your time, and I look forward to receiving your comments and hearing your thoughts below.  Stay Safe and Stay at Home.