As the world is still reeling from the Coronavirus, it has become clear that a crisis affects organisational culture. Workplaces around the world have changed drastically in the past 18 months or so. What have we learned? One thing that is certain, being ‘brain-friendly’ is more important than ever.
It is easy for words to become catchy and cliche, but when we say ‘brain-friendly’ we mean understanding the relationship between our biological system and our behaviours.
We must also be willing to use this new knowledge to improve how we interact with others and how we handle busy, complex and stressful environments.1 We need employees with their bodies and brains performing at their best so we can ensure that ideas and intuition have a platform to leap from, instead of losing our competitive edge.
‘Brain-friendly’ organisations were needed before the pandemic, and now they are needed even more urgently. We must raise the bar of organisational effectiveness, innovation and productivity. Ideas are the new currency, and we need leaders who are ready to embrace change who can manage and mitigate rapidly evolving situations.
Imagine two very different companies--one with explicit cultural norms for the workplace and another with skewed norms that resulted in inconsistency and less flexibility. Which of these imaginary companies would have likely handled the pandemic most effectively?
When you look at your own organisational culture, it is vital to figure out what is and isn’t working and then react appropriately. The first company we described above with clear norms in place would probably have been able to weather the storm of Covid most effectively because employees would already be working in solid teams with agile management. Moving to virtual or remote working would not have been too disruptive.
In a research study published before the current crisis, researchers asked why some organisations are better at handling a crisis than others. According to the authors of this study, people were not that interested in research about how organisational culture can affect that organisation’s ability to react during a time of crisis or strife (which is ironic in hindsight).
The authors proposed three types of organisations: fully adapting, semi-adapting and non-adapting. Unsurprisingly, they found that non-adaptive organisations were the least likely to handle a crisis. When strong managers were present, they were intuitively able to understand what was happening and promptly react.2
Even before the pandemic, it was understood that automation and new technologies were here to stay. We have been forced to change what a ‘normal’ workplace is in response to Covid while still adjusting to the idea that robots will eventually replace many menial and even some not so menial tasks.
Juan Carlos Cubeiro, co-author of ‘Brain-Friendly Leadership: The 9 Habits of a Future-Fit Mind’, recently described a conversation with Dr Carl Frey, a specialist in automation and employment. Dr Frey pointed out four aspects of work that humans can do but machines cannot.
One of these is the resolution of complex problems or being able to sense what is coming. Machines cannot be intuitive because they do not have consciousness or sub-consciousness.3 But humans, we can make decisions following our gut or intuition, and these feelings can be the difference between surviving, thriving or failing.
At times you have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover is yourself.
Alan Alda
When we can trust our instincts, we can make choices quickly when we must. This doesn’t mean we should always throw caution to the wind; instead, we should rely on our intuition as another piece of the puzzle when making decisions. When organisational culture is disrupted, employees may not feel confident about expectations or even goals of the company. They may lose the ‘light at the end of the tunnel’, and with uncertainty comes an increased chance of failure.
Most leaders agree that failure is more likely without a compelling strategy and clear cultural norms. According to the MIT Sloan Management Review, many leaders of mature companies and businesses do not have the necessary mindset to survive in the current times.4
The more predictable and less volatile past is likely gone for good, and now we need leaders who are ready to operate with less information, more volatility and more complications. We need leaders who are ‘brain-friendly’ to face the reality of business in the post-Covid world.