Bridge Over Troubled Waters How will you PIVOT in 2020?
When you’re weary, feeling small, when tears are in your eyes, I’ll dry them all. I’m on your side, when times get rough and friends just can’t be found. Like a bridge over troubled water, I will lay me down.
be, a space the future has been demanding of us for some time yet many feared to go. Picture yourself in a precarious situation, clinging to a cliff face that towers over a deep canyon; it’s here where only two choices exist: do or die. And once you’ve chosen ‘do’, any and all action will be powered by urgency, focus and precision. COVID-19 has dragged us all from the plateau of business comfort, that dangerous place with the luxury of time, multiple attempts and unlimited resources. 2020 is no longer a dress rehearsal.
The all-time classic song from Simon and Garfunkel, Bridge Over Troubled Waters, is likely to feel like a corporate ‘achilles heel’ snapping. Business consortia, owners and teams face unlimited challenges in the path of COVID-19 destruction: diminished demands for previously sought-after products, a lack of essential resources due to a challenged supply chain, a lack of market confidence in the future, essential restructuring and downsizing, restricted social contact to name but a few.
This space is a great place to ensure you separate the business issue from the cause of that issue; one is reality and the other generated or revealed the reality. Are you focusing on the issue of portfolio relevancy or the market’s restricted movement, the issue of antiquated systems or the downturn in business, the issue of market opportunity or lack of consumer confidence? This does not have to be a long, drawnout process yet clarity is vital to allow the result of your plan to serve your pivot point.
As a consequence, some businesses are simply shutting doors, all but given up hope. Then there’s a rare few which are flying high on the unintentional yet rather fortuitous business proposition COVID afforded to them; take for example those who refit hospitals back into an original hotel state, those who provide elearning infrastructures or those who create retail plastic shields. The bulk of business however is willing to make change, yet are perplexed as to where to start for adaptation in order to survive.
If an arrow shot from a bow knocks down the haystack, is it the fault of the arrow, or the inefficiency of the haystack’s design? What matters today, right here right now?
To ‘pivot’ is to twist, turn or even toss in a confined space to result in differing outcomes. Pivoting works with what exists in order to manipulate and maximize. COVID-19 has given business little room to squirm yet much opportunity to pivot. When doing so, the following are key to actions and decisions. COVID-19 has taken business to the edge, the exact space we all need to
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