Amy C. Edmondson, the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business Schoool speaks on the what businesses will look like after the coronavirus.
She states ‘I hope we will come to learn that hiding bad news is never a good idea. That will mean recommitting ourselves to mastering the leadership skills to tell the truth and to engage people in the hard work of creation solutions together.’
Mastering the design and management of teams will become an even more critical focus—or more accurately, mastering what I have called teaming—working in flexible groups with shifting membership, often from different locations, to address particular challenges. Depending on how long the current state lasts, we may see a shift away from static organizational structures toward dynamic team forms. This only works well under conditions of psychological safety, when leaders have made it crystal clear that every team member is welcome to speak up with ideas, concerns, and yes, bad news.
It is unprecedented to have a large cohort of people all over the world start working remotely at the same moment. The only parallel I can think of is from World War II, when waves of women entered heavy manufacturing for the first time. This current case is even more remarkable because it is moving so quickly. The shift has happened in days, not months. Businesses may be able to learn how to move faster, acting in more agile ways, as a result.
For Joseph B. Fuller, a professor of management practice in the General Management unit who also co-leads the School’s Managing the Future of Work initiative, Standard operating practice will be elevated to a new level.
Many of the changes companies will make in the short term are obvious: dramatically reduced travel, more work-from-home opportunities for white-collar workers, and changes in business operations to reduce human contact and to improve workplace hygiene.
I believe the more interesting changes will play out after this public health emergency is behind us. In the past, companies have used the lessons learned during periods of disruption to improve their standard operating practices. For example, the great recession forced employers to revisit their staffing models. The result was a permanent shift in the ratio of part-time workers to full-time workers across the economy. COVID-19 may yield similar changes.
In terms of the businesses most impacted by COVID-19, certain sectors—air travel, hospitality, tourism, and high-end consumer brands that rely on traditional retailing for the bulk of their sales—have already been demonstrably affected. So will industries that revolve around large gatherings, such as many forms of popular entertainment—sports, cinema, concerts—to business conferences and trade fairs.
In the intermediate term, we will see companies that rely on global supply chains be hurt. Once companies run through their existing safety stocks of raw materials or parts provided by a far-flung supplier base, they may face challenges filling demand as their supply chains begin to ramp up.
While Stephen P. Kaufman, a senior lecturer of business administration believes that Supply chain managers suddenly will have a much more difficult job.
The surprising length and complexity of many supply chains will be illuminated sharply by the coronavirus as, for example, when an American equipment manufacturer discovers that a British supplier of a major assembly that they thought they had fully vetted must suspend production because they have an Italian supplier of a sub-assembly who gets an inexpensive, but unique specialty component from an Asian company with a plant in China that has shut down.
Supply chain managers who previously focused their attention one or two levels down into their supply chains will have to go back to work and develop the systems and discipline to track even more deeply into the chain.
Source: Harvard Business School
