Recessions compel leaders of practically all organizations around the world to consider the consequences of a deeply disruptive crisis.
When confronted with a crisis, some leaders shine, causing their companies to grow stronger. Some appear to be stumbling. Others are merely bystanders while their organizations crumble.
Organizations that survive major disruptions are likely to emerge stronger and better prepared to predict and prepare for the next one.
Leaders of organizations are ultimately responsible for Managing Disruption, regardless of the cause. The most significant role is that of the organization's head.
Leaders of organizations who use the following 3-phase systematic strategy will be the most effective during times of disruption:
- Anticipate & Prepare
- Plan & Respond
- Implement & Sustain
Top executive must recognize Disruption's dynamics, forecast its potential consequences, devise a plan to respond to it, govern that response, and maintain the necessary changes.
Let's delve a little more into each phase's specifics.
Anticipate & Prepare
This entails determining the likelihood of a negative event as well as the potential consequences. The other element of this process is preparing for it, which necessitates keeping the level of preparation proportional to the risk's nature and probability.
While it is impossible to predict every disruption, anticipating the kind of disruptions that may be particularly harmful and preparing for them accordingly is a possibility.
Risk management and disruption anticipation should be distinguished between, clearly. Risks that businesses believe they are protected from due to their competencies and capabilities should be examined more closely.
Only the organization's top boss can get around these constraints by learning to ask better questions at many levels of the business and looking ahead rather than depending solely on historical data.
Plan & Respond
This phase necessitates ensuring that there is a clearly stated target and a compelling purpose for it, devising a viable and reliable plan for achieving that objective, and persistently and realistically pursuing it.
The organization's leader is responsible for forming a response to the disruption; leading from the front is crucial for effectively handling a disruptive event. All stakeholders should be consulted without bias and with humility, and all viewpoints should be listened to with an open mind by the organization's leader.
After careful deliberation, the leader should issue a response that clearly states what actions are required, who is responsible for them, and when they must be completed.
Implement & Sustain
One aspect of the process is quickly implementing changes by carefully matching senior executives' capabilities to tasks; the more laborious and crucial part is sustaining such changes so that they take root and become the norm.
When confronted with a business crisis, organizations often commence appropriate solutions, but are unable or unwilling to see them through. In such cases, the problems that hampered the response go unaddressed, and the organization becomes even more unprepared for the next crisis.
To implement change and sustain a company amid disruption, both the Organizational Design and the Organizational Culture must be carefully examined.
It is the job of the organization's leader to guarantee that the structure and culture are ready for the necessary changes and are set up to support the new strategies and each other.
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