Adaptive Human Capital Blog

"Normal" wasn't working anyway...

Posted Apr 30, 2020 by Austin

Today’s challenging, competitive environment means most of us are working at a fever pitch. Long hours, tight deadlines and staff that don’t have time to train. Constantly changing mandates and the need to pivot on a dime. It all adds up to a high stress environment. Add the current COVID crisis and create stress beyond any most of us have ever experienced.

It is now pretty certain that we’re not going back to normal. However, as I heard someone say recently, that may be ok because normal wasn’t working anyway.

In a weird way, that may be the most hopeful message I’ve heard lately as, for many in our society, maybe even for some of our customers, normal wasn’t working very well. The COVID crisis, deadly and disruptive as it has been, may give us a rare opportunity to build a better “normal” in its wake.

It means we’ll need a new, more hopeful mindset – one where disruption isn’t always bad – one where disruption offers HOPE for something better.

That’s why I’ve come to believe that a leader’s most important role today in one of “culture curator.” Leaders today need to foster an environment that actually FAVORS a mindset of disruption – one where we seek disruption to improve our performance – where we disrupt things by design.

I call this new mindset Disruption by Design – and only the most transformational leaders can achieve it for their organizations. Yet, organizations that don’t seek it will be at increased risk in the future.