Recycled Bullsh-IT

Well who knew the new normal was actually going to be such a roller-coaster ride through a pitch-black house of horrors? OK, you can all put your hands back down on your heads and continue screaming now.

Your business is where it is through a combination of blind luck, good (& bad) judgement, frantic reorganisation, and lots of hard work. Your prospects will be medium, low or very low to reflect the abortive COVID alert levels.

So, how can we beat Lockdown: The Sequel (and the rest of the series – Lockdown Subsequent Moviefilm, 28 Weeps Later, etc)?

Stuck on Repeat

We’ve been here before, and most of us have discovered what works and what doesn’t, both personally and for our organisations. You should now have made most of the obvious mistakes, as I have described in previous rants – The New (Ab)normal, etc. So, this time around (and next time) it should be BaU (Bedlam as Usual).

Come Together

What is different this time around is that people have mainly lost the “we’re all in this together” spirit, and are generally fed up, depressed, and starting to feel hopeless. As I mentioned in Mx Motivator our staff need us to fully engage and help them through this difficult period. Though I’ve found that dressing up as a clown to cheer them up just gives them a Stephen King moment.

Subterranean Zoom-sick Blues

Meeting up in person is difficult again but social interaction is even more vital.  Make the effort for more genuine, informal contact with your team. But no-one wants another bloody Houseparty, Zoom quiz, or virtual drinks session, thank you very much.

Opportunity Knocks

Many new businesses have sprung up in difficult times to exploit new opportunities, so think about a variation of Google’s “20% time” to encourage your folk to work on next-gen ideas. Obviously, it won’t help if they think they will then be working 120% time, so be clear that they can use coffee and loo breaks instead [Is that right? – Ed]. Also, this could be so successful that they all leave to become the next unicorns, which will make your redundancy process easier.

Sequel Surfer

You may choose just to hunker down and tough it out again. This may suit some of your colleagues who are petrified of any change but may just lead to the dawn of the dead as you wake to find you’re a zombie business. Even if your best option is to ride out the pandemic, you should use the time to refresh your image, positioning, messages, etc, as this will also refresh your staff. Or at least wake them up.

The business psychobabblers are on about thrive, survive, or dive. 

Me, I suggest you just take five to jive while you’re alive.

John “Waiting for the Threequel” Moe