How Will Companies Adapt?

Today’s highlight is from Wharton’s “Leadership in the Wake of COVID-19: What Enterprise Leaders Will Need to Survive and Prosper in the Years Ahead”. Sherry Bahrambeygui, CEO of PriceSmart spoke about ADAPTATION.  

As a reminder, the intent of these posts and insights are to help you plan the path forward for yourself, your teams, and your organization. If I can be of assistance to you in a coaching or consulting capacity, drop me a note.

Highlights on adaption from Sherry:

• #1: Demolish expectation of face time equating to doing work: Sherry believes this will change permanently. It was already an expectation with the next generation. We thought the process was going to take a while, but here we are! And Sherry urges you as leaders to shift from face time to accountability. The onus to do this is on the supervisor. 

  • Bijal’s org psychologist take: I had predicted this shift of unofficial power down the ranks to the supervisor level when companies started working from home on a mass scale. There’s simply no way for a Director, Partner, VP to stay connected with and on top of a large distributed group of people, so the direct supervisor is key. You may have heard about HSBC’s decision to cut reporting levels from seven to four. Be prepared and expect more “delayering”.

  • Side note: the skills that promoted someone to a supervisor role are NOT the skills needed to succeed as a team leader. I wrote about this last 2 weeks ago, but feel free to reach out if you want more details.

• #2: Individualize policies: Sherry spoke about the need to customize processes to meet employees where they are. At PriceSmart, anyone who has school children can continue to stay home unless there’s a business necessity to come to the office. 

  • Bijal’s take: Bravo! Just like personalized medicine, I do believe this is the future of work for white collar jobs. Progressive companies will focus on the output and value the employee provides, not details like where the work is getting done or at what time. Adding this win to my list of thin silver linings during this pandemic. J

I’ll end with a quote from Churchill: “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” Take time to process, reflect, and enact changes in your personal life and work. If not now, then when? If you want a safe space to explore, make changes, and plan, I’m here in your corner.