A Five Rule Guidebook for 2022
The
separation of workplace from work is still having profound and
not-quite-understood effects on businesses. Don't try to guess where everything
is going. Instead, focus on your own company's capabilities.
BY HOWARD
TULLMAN, GENERAL MANAGING PARTNER, G2T3V AND CHICAGO HIGH TECH
INVESTORS@TULLMAN
Before 1995, when the World Wide Web first
became broadly public, there was an inextricable connection between a company's
identity, brand and physical location - be that an office, a building, a
factory or a store. Much like a business's brand was the shorthand promise of
certain long-understood values, commitments and guarantees, the place where a
business housed its employees stood for what kind of entity it believed it was
and what it stood for - both in terms of space and place.
Shared space and pride of place were crucial
parts of the ways businesses presented themselves to the world, to clients,
customers, and especially employees. And although we always knew that many of
our workplaces were lovelier in theory than in practice, we never realized that
there was a viable alternative to being stuck there five or six days a
week. Today, largely as a product of the Internet's immense growth and its
ubiquitous presence and, more immediately, the presence of COVID-19, we now
know that we can work effectively from anywhere and that, in the new and still
unsettled "normal", digitally distributed businesses know no physical
bounds.
What this means for the office, for corporate
identity and culture, and for the future of work are vast unknowns. In
addition, we have no idea about the long-term impact of massive
decentralization on effective collaboration, generational knowledge transfer,
and the necessity for consistent, ongoing innovation. We've always believed
they were largely a product of proximity, serendipity and fortuitous collisions
of people and ideas. But if corporations and companies served in the past to
assure and anchor control, continuity and stability, what will be their ongoing
role in a "world of one"? What happens when we're all increasingly
working for ourselves or in fluid, flexible teams at a time when the rate of
change is the slowest it will be for the rest of our lives, and nothing seems
to last for more than a moment?
Given that there are no absolute answers to
these new concerns and that every business is a work in progress for the
foreseeable future, the most important guidance I can offer is a series of
simple prohibitions. Make no mistake, however, that "simple" should
not be confused in this case with "easy" and that this process of
restoring and refreshing, renewing and reimagining, and, where appropriate,
rebuilding certainly won't be without its own difficulties. With that fair
warning, here are five things to keep firmly in mind.
Don't Throw Out the Baby with the Bathwater.
In the frenzied rush to finally get back to
business and to adapt to the new world around us, it's easy for conscientious
managers to over-correct -- to abandon essential and important parts of their
business for no good reason except change for change's sake. Be careful
to keep what has always worked well
for you and build the path forward on that firm foundation.
Don't Try to Get to Heaven in One Night.
Everyone's in a hurry and there's no question
that speed is crucial as long as it's
properly employed. Nothing good these days happens in an instant and
no amount of speed will help you if you're on the wrong road. Take the necessary
time to aim carefully before you fire and make haste slowly. Remember that
almost everyone is similarly situated with many of the same concerns,
constraints and limitations that you are facing. Trying to cross the chasm in a
single bound ultimately helps no one.
Don't Try to be All Things to All People.
The accumulated demands of your customers,
partners, vendors, regulators and employees will far exceed your ability, even
over some reasonable period of time, to meet them all. Triage combined with honesty
is critical - prioritize what absolutely needs to be done now for the long-term
good of your business. Explain to those disappointed what can be done in
the future and when, realistically. If necessary, fire those customers and others who won't
take even a momentary "No" for an answer. Better in
these cases a friendly refusal than an unwilling and unachievable promise.
Do a Few Things Very Well.
Spreading yourself too thin - being a mile
wide and an inch deep - is a formula for failure and unhappiness. It's more important than ever- in a time of scarcity and
limits - to focus. Decide at the outset what the core offerings of
your firm will be and then determine what people and other resources will be
required to deliver those key items on the money, on time, and in a fashion
that makes you and your people proud.
And finally, remember that how you get there
(the process) is just as important as where you end up (the end products) -
especially because there's no finish line. Make the journey objective and
transparent, extensive and inclusive, and focused on concrete outcomes and
results - actions, not oratory.
DEC 7, 2021
The
opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of
Inc.com.