How do some companies adapt quickly to situations, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, and even fare well while others suffer?
The challenge is daunting in a society in perpetual motion where everything goes fast, everything is urgent and everything at a cost. Success rests on a desire to adapt to any event, including that of changing our traditional way of managing by putting the individual at the heart of success.
To stay competitive and survive, you need to stay abreast of needs and trends while creating a flexible infrastructure to keep up with market movements. It is also worth thinking, focusing on the human aspect only, on the activities and stakeholders required for a person to regain balance during important events. Change management is omnipresent in our lives. Since childhood, parents, family, friends, school and society have supported each person throughout their journey to help them adapt to the movement. In business, each person cannot be confronted with a new reality and be instantly in control and comfortable performing their tasks. It is essential to take this into account in all future decisions or initiatives. To support people well during transitions, the company needs a team of leaders with solid management skills. It is in his best interest to have the right managers in the right place at the right time.
Flexibility is an asset to adjust quickly. The company therefore needs a flexible infrastructure that promotes movement management. This implies an organization of work and optimal processes promoting mobilization and creativity because nothing is fixed. On the contrary, it is a perpetual movement that forces the organization to continually adapt. It therefore takes as much time and energy to improve internal operations as it does to improve products and services for customers. Understanding and being ahead of customer needs helps anticipate and create trends. It’s an art to aspire to. Some companies are masters in this field and stand out for their agility, creativity and leadership. Among these, some are in start-up or in growth, but several of them are maturing. They have kept their sacred fire, their desire to surpass themselves, to stand out and be the benchmark in the market.
The other variable to keep in mind is needs. It is clear that the balance between the needs of individuals and those of the company is increasingly complex to reconcile. On the one hand, there are individuals, who all have different needs and a life balance to maintain, and on the other hand, there are companies, which have objectives to achieve in a dynamic and demanding context. The entrepreneur must be vigilant and attentive so that the individuals he employs participate in the growth of the business. If the needs of individuals match those of the business, everyone wins. This cannot be done without paying attention to both individual and collective needs. It is advisable to have a framework that promotes the management of career and development objectives to help reconcile everything.
The balanced company adapts more quickly to market movements because it recognizes that the individual is at the heart of its success, it chooses value-added initiatives and, it adjusts its ways of doing things to promote its evolution. It maintains balance by caring for the satisfaction of individual needs, while achieving business goals. Imbalances cannot be avoided but taking care of them and acting quickly prevents the situation from deteriorating. It takes a lot less energy to keep your balance than it does to get it back. It is the old adage that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
The future belongs to any organization that wants to change, improve, adjust to market movements and does it quickly. Nowadays, the sustainability of an organization depends on the mobilization of people and its flexibility. Any company that refuses this reality and has failed to set up a flexible structure in a human-centered environment will degrade and eventually close.
Image from Geralt
