Shaping up beautifully

Wow. Times they are a changing… rapidly.

The world has ground to a halt for a number of months as Covid-19 has tragically spread rapidly, closing countries borders, taking airplanes from the skies and cars from the roads, teaching us all what “social distancing” means and that’s before we get to the economic or sociological effects of this pandemic and our response to it.

Pause. Stop. Breathe.

Is now the time for a reboot?

The pandemic, that we’re still in the midst of, was just one of many signals that change is needed in our approach to life as a species. Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic we were in the thick of a global environmental crisis dealing with the growing carbon impact of our growth and evolution as a species, to many seen as an indicator of success. We’re still in the thick of the environmental crisis. Our evolution can’t continue on its current trajectory, we need to evolve our thinking as a species to make a new mainstream mindset.

Brands, organisations and their products, services or events and we, as individuals, need to take a collective responsibility to enable this change, or evolution to happen. We all need to take a look at our objectives and rationales for conducting the business we do and establish what we can do to evolve our behaviour for the better. This isn’t a finger pointing exercise, it’s a mature, adult conversation, based on pragmatic and practical goals that we can aim for, that will yield better results for everyone.

Over the last few years we’ve been evolving our rationale for selecting the projects we want to work on, to invest our energy into, to reflect our belief that we all need to evolve our approach to work. This seem somewhat idealistic to many, but if we don’t attempt to weave this into our way of working now, how can we claim to offer future thinking strategic consulting services.

To support and evolve those that strive for successful businesses, but a success built on the right values and ethics, not profit at any cost – we need to create a more sustainable approach to how we do business. The Covid-19 pandemic wasn’t necessarily the tipping point to indicate that we need a reboot now, that has been coming for a while, and to be fair we were all slowly starting to listen. But it’s certainly a big line in the sand.

• We need to think about how we work collaboratively, showing greater respect for each other and working together to achieve shared goals that we can all benefit from.

• We need to think about the resources we’re working with, are they sustainable and what’s the output of any manufacturing, transport or operating process that we might need to achieve our products or services?

• We need to think about our audiences or customers more carefully than ever, as we move to a more enlightened, liberated (in some ways) and vocal feedback loop. Who are they and are they getting what they need from our products or services and are we making them accessible to the people we’re aiming them at? Do we need to evolve products and services to make more accessible versions to reach more people?

• We need to think clearly, in an informed manner, about our objectives and strategies. Are they aligned to our values and beliefs, are they for the greater good, value focussed or are they focussed on purely personal ambitions to the detriment of others? Do we need to evolve our values to address the new challenges that face us?

• We need to think about how we market these products and services. We need to move society away from the current disposable economy, where only this year’s model or colour will do, to a world where we think beyond that tribal approach to consumerism.

We want to play a role in this evolution of organisational and strategic change, in an effective, positive way that brings real value to you and the services and products you deliver. We want to use the experiences that we’ve built up over the decades of working for organisations that both see this change coming and are evolving and adapting for the good, and those that didn’t or choose not to see it as it might diminish their own personal gains.

Our cultural desires and values as a species are evolving, organisations and brands need to evolve to meet these desires and needs, or fall by the wayside.

To be clear, this isn’t about halting business growth (wellness sector grew by 6.4% in 2018 from 2016/2017), this is about intelligent design, built on insight and clear strategic planning, understanding and sustainable objectives, rather than an opportunity to exploit a growth sector.

Image credit – Luca Bravo – https://unsplash.com/photos/-grKZ-GzWyU