While driving into work yesterday, I found myself reflecting on this past year coming to a close. OK, it was really more like, “Holy cannoli, we’re almost halfway through December already! Where did the year go? That was way too fast.”
This led me to also recall it has now been three years since the infamous reversal of fortunes the market abruptly experienced in fall 2008. Three years.
I think that now qualifies us to admit the “New Normal”* so many people espoused through 2009, is actually pretty dead on. The market realties organizations pushed through to survive, or hopefully thrive, in 2009 were very much at play through 2010, and 2011. For 2012, there is a sense this will continue to be the case. The “New Normal” is here to stay.
So what is the “New Normal”? Factors I believe to be central to it are, to name a few, increased competition, rapidly shifting technologies, and emerging disruptive business models—all compounded by an overall faster pace of market demands paired with businesses operating with fewer resources. Sounds fun, huh? It sure is dynamic and exciting.
That is all well and good, but my real intention for bringing-up the “New Normal” is my observation of how many business leaders view it as an external factor impacting their strategies and not an equally critical internal factor they can address and change.
If your market environment has drastically changed, why would you keep your working environment the same? Why assume the practices that worked before, will continue to work now in this drastically different “New Normal”?
A perfect example I see of this is Waterfall versus Agile. Numerous studies and teams have shown that Agile work practices can consistently deliver products faster, with fewer errors, higher business value, and all while embracing the changes that pop-up along the way. Awesome. Businesses want these results. But, they aren’t willing to change how they work. Perplexing. I am going to go out on a limb here and presume we have all heard Einstein’s definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Are you seeing the gap now? Agile is just one example.
Businesses have an enormous opportunity to challenge their old normal work practices and adapt, or maybe even reinvent, them to produce a “New Normal” inside** their teams to better deliver and respond to the “New Normal” demands of the marketplace**—whatever those may continue to be in 2012+.
Happy (Agile) New Year!
*In March 2009, McKinsey Quarterly posted in interesting take on this concept: https://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/The_new_normal_2326
**Get inspired to explore your internal New Normal by viewing Reinventing the Technology of Human Accomplishment by thought-leader Gary Hamel at http://www.managementexchange.com/video/gary-hamel-reinventing-technology-human-accomplishment .
Author: Stacy Sheldon, Director of Marketing