Matthew Curtis

As we enter the final month of 2020 inevitably we will be reflecting and reviewing the year that's been and looking towards the new year..

It's been a year without comparison for us all due to the pandemic, if you haven't been touch by the virus, then without doubt your life and business will have been touched by the containment measures that have been taken by government. You may or may not have been able to receive some mitigation from the raft of support packages put in place. Your business may or may not have delivered the results you had planned for in terms of hard £ metrics, but what condition are you, your people and your business in to face 2021?

In your appraisal of 2020 make time to consider not only how your £ capital has fared but importantly how your human capital has fared.

Hopefully throughout the year you have managed to stay close to your people & teams, never accepting that working remotely being on furlough meant becoming remote & distant. It's well researched and documented that humans thrive when they have a sense of purpose, feel they are part of something bigger than themselves and their contribution is valued.

In the VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex & ambiguous) world that we live in creating & communicating a clear vision for your organisation, so that every team member can feel a part of something bigger, have a sense of purpose and know that their personal contribution is important - can provide greater certainty and improve well-being as well as performance.

In your review of 2020, how well did you keep people engaged, informed & feeling that they had a purpose & a valuable contribution to make to the business? Were they included in shaping new plans & ways of working... or did time pressures mean that they weren't consulted as you would have liked?

Were the decisions & the communications that you made truly consistent with the vision, values & culture of your organisation that you are striving for? If you believe they were intended to be ... have you checked that's how they were received? Do you have the courage to find out & can your people let you know the truth without fear of repercussions? These are some of the searching questions that you might need to ask & answer.

How can you set up your people, teams & business up for a successful 2021, harnessing all the learnings of 2020, to be a more resilient organisation, better equipped to withstand the challenges ahead?

Does your organisation have the neurodiversity (or if yours is a micro business are you) to effectively put in place systems & processes to mitigate the damage caused by negative events (business continuity planning).

Are you working to optimise current operations to eek out a competitive edge versus the competition or to secure and additional % point of margin (continuous improvement/lean thinking).

Are you spending time & resource on imagining new futures and creating new products & services to satisfy the needs of customers or to solve the problems that exist in those new futures? (Creating / innovating) and are you empowering your people and teams to deal with the challenges of today from your existing markets, responding to customer feedback, reacting to competitive pressure & threats, are your team effectively deployed, empowered, engaged & equipped with the tools & tactical thinking to maximise the return on the moment. (empowered teams)

M4C is working with businesses & leaders, helping them to assess their organisational resilience, create more robust plans & strategies for the future. Coaching leaders and owners in creating and communicating their vision & roadmap for the coming years & to build the capacity to deliver the vision.

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