How businesses can reorganise for an unpredictable world

We’re living in a time of ‘punctuated equilibrium’, where our status quo has been rocked by the pandemic.

It isn’t yet clear what the ‘new normal’ will look like, only that work and business will need to adapt fast for survival.

In partnership with WIRED magazine, we spoke to a group of business leaders - from law, hospitality, technology, finance, retail and private equity - to find out how they’re planning to survive and thrive in a Covid-19 centric economy.

Six key observations emerged:

1. The pandemic has catalysed major changes already – matching that speed is the new survive or thrive factor for business.
2. The metrics of the past have been swept away – Covid-19 has caused massive disruption to the usual exponential curve for growth and it’s time to zero-base old assumptions.
3. Businesses have to adapt and adjust fast– it’s time to embrace the opportunity to accelerate how they transform in this non-linear, incomprehensible world.
4. Resilience is everything - for the first time in more than a decade, resilience trumps efficiency - even at the cost of short-term profits - and for business leaders that offers new opportunities.
5. Putting people first is now essential – businesses are humanising at scale with a divide emerging between those paying lip service and taking it more seriously, trusting the good intentions of people.
6. A great reorganisation is afoot – our lives have changed fundamentally and this change in society will, in turn, lead to permanent change for businesses in terms of their ethos, values and approach.

Read the full WIRED article for insights from the group on how these could translate in practice to influence business practice, and our lives, in the future.