Use COVID-19 challenge to strengthen resilience, Khan tells Govt. and corporates

• Says current lull in activity can be used to mandate completion of delayed or stalled state and corporate projects, strategies

 By Nisthar Cassim

Recognised as a global authority on leadership development and human behaviour, Omar Khan this week urged the Government and corporate sector to use the period of inactivity

created by COVID-19 mitigation as an opportunity to roll out delayed or stalled projects and improvements.

“If any state or corporate projects have been delayed in terms of implementation or stalled for any reason, such as too many meetings or other priorities, those can now be prioritised and a mandate can be given to complete them within a specified period,” Khan told the Daily FT in an interview.

“Now is the golden opportunity to do all those things which Steven Covey would call ‘important but not urgent’ or those that have gathered dust. It could even be IT enhancement, staff training, coaching, establishing better governance or laying the foundation for a quality program. If state agencies and corporates can focus on those and be done with those projects, the country and corporates will be more than ready to take off when the COVID-19 crisis is behind us,” he emphasised.

“This way staff can be productively engaged and, if needed, people can be mobilised virtually with technology,” said Khan, who is a founder and senior partner of Sensei International, which supports some of the world’s leading organisations with leadership and business development challenges. Khan said psychologically, if the narrative is about what we cannot do and how our lives have come to a halt, then that is not a healthy place to be in.

“We must have a national or corporate imperative to break a stalemate, finish incomplete projects or catalyse delayed strategies. When life and business do return to normal, you are ready,” he explained, adding that the current period was an opportune moment for businesses to put their house in order and stress test strategies.

He said, as in the case of an illness, shocks also offer a chance to regroup and those who were successful were the ones who view such scenarios through a visionary perspective rather than adopting a despondent mindset.

“You need to re-prioritise so that you can ensure that everything you can do, you are still doing. You just have to make it as doable as possible,” he added.

"Like healthy immune systems shrug off disease, healthy political, economic and cultural immune systems do better in weathering shocks"

He urged corporates to go back to the drawing board because they needed “to be ready when the situation shifts for the better. The time the crisis ends is not the best period to figure out what to do. This is important if your company wants to have the best idea or answer when things are ready,” he added.

Khan predicts that countries will achieve a level of mitigation with the virus but will not eliminate it anytime soon. However, a psychological switch will inform us that we as a nation have done our best and have to move on.

“This can be in a month or in three months from now. We need to be ready, be fast out of the gate,” he said. Get the communication strategy ready, reach out to partners, make offers to all the customers who can still transact business or those who are here on these shores.

“There is a golden opportunity for Sri Lanka and corporates to become resilient. The focus should be on building growth prospects, good governance and political stability. We need to be doing things rather than merely paying lip service. At the end of the day, rich countries will do better than those who are poor; countries that are more a part of the future or the new economy will do better, those with good governance will do better,” Khan explained.

“Like a healthy immune system shrugs off disease, healthy political, economic and cultural immune systems do better in weathering shocks,” stressed Khan.

"I am very bullish about Sri Lanka if the country can get out of its own way. What I am not bullish about is how much we disbelieve our own capacity"

Political and corporate leadership about being island of sanity 

He said political and corporate leadership was about being an island of sanity because “you don’t run the world nor do you determine what happens. However, one can decide to be an exemplar, survive, be resilient and be successful. This mindset makes a huge difference in terms of how you operate,” Khan asserted.  

Noting that Sri Lanka had suffered a lot due to self-inflicted wounds over the years, using COVID-19 as an opportunity to be resolute and resilient was important.

“Post-war, we did and are still doing quite a few things right but now we are beset by external shocks,” he said. 

“And so can we prepare a true strategy for a breakthrough, and get a plan to build those capabilities, when we have some breathing room?” Khan also expressed that he was very bullish about Sri Lanka if the country could get out of its own way.

“What I am not bullish about is how much we disbelieve our own capacity,” he stated. 

“I come across many companies that tell me our people are not ready and when I ask employees they say they are not ready because of who they are being led by. So I go back to leadership and say that I agree that your people are not ready and the reason I give is that you are a mirror and look in there and that is the reason they are not ready,” Kahn pointed out.

He also advised corporates to stay in touch with customers during the lull created by COVID-19, and not to attempt to sell to them but to find out how they were faring and inform them about what the company was doing.

"Let’s get ready to be ‘fit for growth’ after we’ve weathered this storm. And if painfully buffeted, now more than ever we need radically creative and courageous leadership responses, and a chance to shelve outmoded anachronisms"

“Any genuine reassurance will help. This is true of customers and employees,” he pointed out. When asked what weighed down corporates during the time of a pandemic such as COVID-19, Khan said companies tended to be caught up doing something they should not be.

“Don’t let fear become more PR than prudence,” he added.

He said cancelling large gatherings without specifying a maximum number of attendees was unwise as one could have a meeting with 30 people in a room which could accommodate twice that number.

Nevertheless, Khan urged corporates to follow every mitigating guideline and best practice and avoid implementing cosmetic preventive measures which merely served to tick a box.

“That being said, as time passes, while still following intelligent guidelines, we will have to be creative in using technology, safe with more open spaces, re-engineering processes so less labour-intensive approaches are needed and more,” he added. 

“But let’s get ready to be “fit for growth” after we’ve weathered this storm. And if painfully buffeted, now more than ever, we even radically creative, courageous, leadership responses, and a chance to shelve outmoded anachronisms,” Khan emphasised.