Throughout my career, I’ve worked with a variety of educational institutions, churches, record companies, and touring artists. All four of those worlds are being shaken by the current crisis our world is facing. I’ve spent the last few weeks researching different ways organizations respond in crisis and I have discovered a few key leadership suggestions that I think might help you transition from crisis management into innovation.
Business strategists consistently posit that one of the biggest barriers to innovation is the disruption to the status quo that always follows. To minimize disruption, innovation is viewed with skepticism if not outright disdain. But when the disruption is external (like the arrival of a culture-shifting viral pandemic) innovation becomes a survival technique. The entertainment industry, educational institutions, and religious institutions now have a rare opportunity to innovate. Don’t waste this opportunity to rethink the way you’ve always done things. We literally CAN NOT continue do things the way we’ve always done them. Here are 3 steps you can take to help your organization move from disruption to innovation.
ZOOM OUT – Reset your perspective and re-ask the fundamental questions: What do you have to offer? Why are you doing this work? What do you want your career, your business, your church to be remembered for. Re-establishing your core values will help you know what matters and what doesn’t as you step forward. This is meta-leadership; taking a broad and holistic view of the challenges and opportunities you are facing. Our bodies respond to crisis by narrowing our focus. Wise leaders however know they must broaden their focus when disruption hits. Re-evaluate what matters and what you uniquely have to offer.
BUILD YOUR TEAM – When the disruption threatens your bottom line, the natural reaction of most organizations is to streamline departments and centralize control. However, great leaders in disruption centralize order but loosen control. Now is the time to give oxygen to the innovative thinking of your team no matter what level of the organization those innovations come from. Build your team and empower them help you build a new post-virus reality. [I have specific ideas for how this idea can be applied by touring artists, educational institutions, and churches. Email me and let’s get specific.}
DON’T MANAGE, LEAD – It’s natural to react to a disruption by seeking to manage it’s effects on your status-quo. However, leading through a disruption requires a long-term perspective and decisive, nimble pivots. Regardless of how long it lasts, a disruption of this global magnitude IS CHANGING EVERYTHING. We will not get “back to normal” in a few weeks. But we WILL find a “new normal.” The way people gather, shop, entertain themselves, cook, worship, and exercise will be affected for years by this pandemic. There is a “normal” that existed before this disruption. There is the chaos of the disruption itself. And there is a “new normal” that culture is moving toward. You cannot simply position yourself and wait for the day things get back to normal. Now is the time you must anticipate this new normal and innovate toward it. Now is the time to act decisively and take some wise risks.
You can help your organization move from disruption to innovation. As threatening as this crisis may feel here in the middle of it, wise leaders view it as an opportunity to zoom out, build their team, and lead their organization into a strategic “new normal.”