Business Value Creation – Post Pandemic: Building Business Resiliency
This is the fifth in Forum Solutions’ five-part series: Business Value Creation - Post Pandemic, designed to help businesses create value in the wake of COVID.
Operating within a disaster response environment requires processing and acting on rapidly changing information, while navigating a cascade of “unknown unknowns”. Your business continuity/disaster recovery (BC/DR) plan, if you have one, likely guided you through this pandemic.
In the setting of abrupt change caused by a disaster like the Covid-19 pandemic, it can be useful to use a Disaster Recovery framework to help your team orient to the changes they have experienced. This is especially pertinent considering that for many of us, our work environments may continue to shift in these uncertain times. The framework provides structure in a ‘Hammer and Dance’ scenario, which refers a fast, aggressive response characterized by a rapidly changing environment, followed by a period of less aggressive but regularly changing efforts as you address the root issues that caused the emergency.
How you intentionally adjust operations and mindsets as you move through the disaster recovery cycle, can 1) help your team identify where you are on the cycle (which is not always evident during a crisis); 2) absorb inevitable “shocks” that come from operating in an environment with frequently changing information and 3) create resiliency.
1. Preparedness: Activities conducted to plan, build capacity, and promote readiness. First and foremost, this begins with a BC/DR plan that is regularly tested and updated. No company can prepare for all crisis scenarios, but it can plan for a methodical approach to responding to one.
2. Response: Actions taken during an emergency to save lives, property, and the environment. A practiced BC/DR plan sets the stage for your response actions, however be prepared for the emotional energy required to move from regular operations to response to recovery in the face of extraordinary uncertainty and sometimes fear.
3. Recovery: Steps taken to restore and resume regular operations. During and after a crisis response, it is difficult to remember the details and to recognize the ‘wins.’ Implementing a Hot Wash debrief is a nimble way to evaluate and improve in real-time and apply that to your recovery.
4. Mitigation: Efforts to assess risk and reduce vulnerabilities. The steps taken to restore operations in recovery set the stage for future mitigation efforts to proactively address these types of issues in the future.
How you adapt operations and mindsets will inform your future BC/DR plans as you incorporate company appetite for risk - and how it may have changed in the recent crisis.
Forum Solutions’ five-part series: Business Value Creation - Post Pandemic includes:
Business Value Creation – Post Pandemic Part 1 of 5: Planning for the Future
Business Value Creation – Post Pandemic Part 3 of 5: Crafting Leadership + Culture
Business Value Creation – Post Pandemic Part 4 of 5: Establishing a Modern Workforce
Business Value Creation – Post Pandemic Part 5 of 5: Building Business Resiliency
Forum Solutions is a management consulting company that helps Seattle’s business and nonprofit leaders to build and implement effective strategies for transformative growth and sustainable results. Forum offers clients the right skills for every job: strategic expertise, lean execution, and agile resourcing – improving businesses at any level – from the executive suite to the individual contributor.