Have you been disrupted? Did you laugh out loud just now?
COVID has certainly created a level of disruption for most businesses and organizations that we haven’t seen for a very long time. Your customers have been disrupted. Your operations have been disrupted. Your cash flow has been disrupted. Even your personal lives have been disrupted.
Disruption sucks. It’s hard. It’s uncomfortable. We mourn the loss of normalcy and routine and predictable results. We look forward to getting back to some form of normal. Disruption has rocked our world.
But disruption might be the biggest opportunity we’ve had in a long time.
Let me get this out of the way. It feels icky to think about how you can take advantage of a crisis. People are dying and really struggling. Turning this into an opportunity might not feel right, but getting back to a new normal will require innovation and success to drive jobs and get our economy started again.
So how is disruption an opportunity?
Disruption implies the disruption of habits and habits are hard to create and difficult to overcome. COVID has disrupted those habits giving us an opportunity to create new habits.
Those habits can be healthy for your culture. Now is a great opportunity to change how you communicate, how you manage, how you make your product, and how you strategize as a team. If you do need to make layoffs, you may have an opportunity to move on from people who haven’t been as positive for your culture. Now is the time to think about what habits would benefit your organization!
Habits can also impact your relationship with your customers. Your customers are developing new habits. You need to understand how those new habits will impact how they interact with you. Many customers will be much more likely to embrace technology today then they were just a few months ago. Meeting the needs of your customers is critical and finding the way to meet new needs is a huge opportunity.
Disruption is rough, but it is an opportunity. You are paying for this opportunity even though you never asked for it, so you might as well utilize it. It’s the best way to move on past the suffering and put people back to work.
Want to know more about where you stand in your recovery? Download our Recovery Planning Checklist Here.
