As the beginning of the new decade is a great time to start planning ahead and start organising your future personal and business goals it is also a great time to take a moment to look back and reflect on what the previous decade taught us. The change the past decade brought to the world is the largest and fastest humanity had seen up until today when it comes to business and projections show that the next decade will bring even bigger and even faster ones.
Over the last ten years massive changes have been noticed in the way business is conducted affecting many aspects of organisations such as operations, management, strategy, marketing & communications etc. but there are a few things that we have been taught that we should focus a little bit more into and those are.
Make the Most Out Of Everyone
The first thing the past decade taught us is that in order for a business to be successful one of it’s most important assets has to be happy in order to be productive. Ofcourse we are referring to a company’s human resources. Productivity in the workplace is very important nowadays and your employees have to feel confident, assured and happy in order to be productive. Invest in your people and you will soon enough understand that this can be the best investment you ever made. Start by carefully screening your future candidates and focus on acquiring as much talent as you can eliminating the chance of failure.
Also stay on top of your people and try to keep them happy by training them, rewarding them and making them feel important. Mental Health is a massive issue that showed up this decade and it is projected to get bigger over the next one, so invest in keeping your people satisfied no matter what. It is said that once a Manager asked a CEO what would happen if they invested in their human resources and they left, and the CEO replied “imagine what would happen if we didn’t invest in them and they stayed”. So in order to make the most out of everyone you must first offer a lot to everyone.
Culture Over Strategy
One of the biggest lessons companies and organisations have learned over the past ten years is that “culture eats strategy for breakfast”. Companies and Brands are not as shallow as they once were and their are starting to get deeper and deeper daily. Culture is considered to be one of the most important aspects modern organisations focus on and the results seem to be rewarding.
Brands nowadays have a purpose, have a meaning and most importantly have something to stand for. Companies create a promise to their customers and that promise is being delivered throughout the main element that affects every single aspect of an organisation and that is Culture. Its is proven that companies who have invested in their culture and have tried to pass it on to their employees seem to be more productive and profitable than companies that solely focus on strategy and results.
Embrace Change
Change is inevitable and we get to see that every day, and as it is said Utopia is not defined as believing that things will one day change, but believing that things will always stay the same. The past decade taught us that we should be ready for changes and that we should embrace those changes if we want to survive and thrive in an industry.
The most common example of this case would be large traditional corporations that never adapted to the new technological revolution and either went bankrupt either realised it too late and they are still struggling to catch up with the rest of the world. Change is a natural thing and it will always come, the idea is to be prepared for it and take advantage of it.
If it is not Broken, Break it
Although for many years we hear the expression “if it is not broken, don’t break it” the past decade taught us something different, and that is “if it is not broken, break it and fix it again”. Ofcourse this refers to Innovation and the way companies treat this matter. As we previously said change is inevitable and technology is rapidly growing bringing new opportunities and threats to companies.
One of the best lessons the previous decade gave us was to take advantage of innovation and use it to optimise products and services. Therefore we should sit back and rethink our operations and find new innovative and more modern ways to treat them in other words break it, and fix it again but better.
