Umer Bhatti

We were just relocated to a new office building. Everyone was in a mixed emotions and trying to settle down in a new place. After having few office shifting in a short while, one thing I have realized that on every change either it is workplace setting or process related alteration, Management has to undergo once again complete change management process. Similarly, HR department also has to opt the role of catalyst to build working relationship between the team members.

It was March 24, 2020 and first case of corona virus was already reported in Pakistan but as it is part of human psychology to remain in the denial mode until it affects you, so same happened with us. Things were as per plan, meetings were all set, projects were in pipe line, recruitment cases were finalized and then the least concerned news of that time had started to grab our attention, COVID 19: a new reality. Initially, these news were only appeared on social media but later on became integral part of all print and electronic media and until now it has been the leading news of all sort of mediums. World Health Organization (WHO) has declared corona virus a Pandemic.  Since the emergence, it has clenched 213 countries across the globe, effected more than ten million world’s population and death toll has crossed five hundred thousand. Beside this, it has also effected the social and economic side of the world. Due to prolonged lock downs and restrictions on mobility, organizations have been suffering a lot; they are not even able to meet their running expenditures, from hospitality industry to real estate businesses, every sector is struggling for its survival, large Multinational Corporation to fresh start-ups almost every second organization is at the bank of bankruptcy. In the Forbes magazine, Rodger Dean has mentioned that “If ever the people on our planet faced uncertainty, now is that time”. Despite the fact that few countries have successfully flattened the COVID 19 curve but their business firms and organizations are still in a fear of second or third wave.

Having said that, I would mention a famous quote ‘when the going gets tough, the tough get going’, regardless of the most difficult and challenging time of contemporary human history, there is a ray of hope that a day will come when organizations will come out of this whirlpool situation strongly and successfully. Although, there are lot of factors that will contribute organizations to stand-up again, but to me one of the critical factor that will help organizations to come out of this chaos would be the organization’s prevailing culture. Those organizations who have cultural of agility and resilience will make this happen rapidly, because it is the culture of organization that influence people’s behaviour and subsequently motivate them to achieve organization’s common objective.

While, the organizational culture has been meticulously explained in the key management books and in the organizational behaviour literature but after reading relevant stuff and having discussion with few Organizational Development experts; one description that seeks my attention is that organization has culture of ‘agility and resilience’, if it endures failures, allows to test hypothesis and able to adjust itself in case of internal and external changes.

It is famous management philosophy that “Manager’s error is a subordinate’s trial”. Those organizations whose culture is embedded with the feature of bearing failures and regard them as lesson, would have capacity to produce more Failure Tolerant Leaders and also develop survival instinct among their employees. The foremost reason behind this is; because these organizations serve as incubator for the young leaders.  Hence, at this point of time, when organisations have been facing totally new scenario for which they are not prepared for, the organizations with agile and resilient culture would have innate ability to tolerate the economic blow of Covid19 and come out positively. Secondly, culture to welcome new assumptions and test them, enhances confidence among employees and also improve bottom up communication, therefore during this pandemic led economic crisis, novelty of ideas would offer these organizations a competitive advantage over others and due to better communication flow between different tiers, leadership will be aware of actual situation and they will make more rational decisions, which would be not less than blessing in this mounting pressure situation. Lastly, resilience is a Latin word which mean ‘jump back’, organizations with resilient culture make internal and external situations analysis an integral part of their regular strategic meetings and give due weightage to contingency planning, which also reflects in their routine operational plans. Therefore, this frequent strategic and operational planning culture make these organization proactive and robust. Consequently, during this turmoil, they will carry out more rational planning, which will help them to emerge out of this situation.

Umer Bhatti