New Normal requires new approaches in Leadership and Management

On the route to a ``New Normal``

The altered conditions and new tools enforce a real “New Normal”: work and thus managing of direct Reports are really changing. It’s about more than a return to “earlier” or “before COVID19”! Rather, on the part of the workforce, it is about:

Self-motivation towards for purpose of the work
self organization of their own work, regardless of where they work from
different ways of doing things – as long as they lead towards the goal or result
Independent but sensible organization of working hours, including office vs. home office use.

This requires from leadership in the New Normal:

on one hand, trust in the skills and motivation of employees
and so enabling them, also through coaching, instead of control them
on the other hand, act as role model for mobile working – balance between accessibility and the right to privacy
Finally, the active promote a transparent, cooperative and health aware company culture
apart from that, provide and even jointly further develop the needed (IT) infrastructure

Yet, these demands are trivial – and on top of that, they are decades old! However, there is a wealth of experience from the last months that could become even more acute in the New Normal. In the following I present some conclusions to provide guidance for leaders in the New Normal.

1. New Normal: enterprises demonstrating excellence perform, as ever!

The “Fifth Wave” had brought crisis management back to the fore – but this must not obscure the view onto the “time afterwards”! The fighting chance is: maintaining the mastered processes, continuing the digitization – for employee and customer benefit!

Varied measures are recommended, again. I observed: where clearly structured, clean, fast-flowing production with ergonomic workplaces was given before “COVID-19” conditions, all of that can be upheld in the New Normal! One can interact friendly, delegate with more participation, control progress openly, and maintain a rapid work flow, and still do something for health!

Conclusions for personnel management: Situational leadership is more than ever before needed between stating rules and solving problems in a casual, creative way. And because some rules for Home Office work are still limits to freedom and are even being questioned, communication is ever more important. State a reason, explain …

2. New Normal as a Chance: More than Communication and Cooperation with new tools!

The home office brought with it high demands. It is about more than the exchange of emails, which had long since flooded computers with spam, marked CC:

In particular, video software, e.g. MS Teams, WebEx or Zoom, and cooperation software, the simple Conceptboard, MS Planner and many others, forced and enabled really new forms of interaction. Often these (yet, often not so new) tools were met with a certain skepticism.

Inevitable innovations

So Home Office and New Normal brought a certain pressure to try things out, until progress in learning, leading to initial success was achieved, and finally new skills were developed. For managers and employees alike! In many places, some existing programs had long been neglected and left idle until their benefit was now recognized under Home Office conditions. They gained acceptance and thus were used. In the end you had to go through it: “With a little help from my friends.” – In this respect, virtual co-working is nothing really new: what is new is the tool landscape that is simply still not fully integrated! The joy of finding out what is now possible and the fun of the creative use are obscured by slow response times, and by frustration about functions that are out of a blue sky no longer available.

Long awaited New Normal: Useful clarifications for virtual cooperation

Which work procedures and meetings will we want to do in the home office?
How long shall we plan regular meetings, max.?
How do we ensure function of processes, interfaces and split of tasks, virtually?
Which tools are suitable for virtual communication and cooperation – what is specified by the employer, what is further desirable?
Which binding regulations on accessibility do we want to meet? How can we set a limit to setting dates for others in Outlook?
When do we set up a regular virtual meeting – and stick to it?
What special agreements shall we make for informal meetings, such as after-work “parties”, or for health promoting activities, such as gymnastics, yoga …
Only after the true end to fifth wave: Which face-to-face meetings should be reintroduced?

Makeshift Home Office equipment: nothing lasts like an interim solution

Accessibility as a trap

But be careful: once permanent access to all is technically ensured, under home office conditions it may well be thought of as permanent availability. Customers, managers, employees know that e.g. middle managers are simply “there”. Consequently, the calenders of those are completely booked. In some organizations, seven to eight one-hour meetings a day have long become custom…

Consequences for Personnel management:

This also calls for discipline on the part of managers – the home office is actually a synonym for individual work. And that has to be done at some point. It is possible that setting dates in Outlook without consultation is not the method of choice …

In the New Normal, executives will have to trust, more than ever before, and have to say good bye to any micro management because it just doesn’t work.

3. Home Office and New Normal: Make sure to continue informal problem solving..

The continuous virtuality of co-working, suddenly required, could also slow down processes. In the case of minor hickups, you could make eye contact, standing up and go there, look for and find material that was missing – none of that is just as easy in Home Office. And many sales and commercial tasks urgently require contact “with the outside world”, which to quite some extent can be done with the help of IT. But personal visit is still limited. It is all the more urgent to maintain lively contact virtually, still.

Conclusions for personnel management: Managers and employees quickly trained new forms of informal contacts, even to solve everyday problems. In this way, they ensured mutual trust and, at the same time, efficiency: short phone calls, text messages, spontaneous virtual meetings … However, emails and, even more so, scheduled virtual conferences are far less suitable for agile communication!

And: work is a tried and tested means against gloom! Much can be done virtually and without major losses, and if all goes well, with more fun also!

4. Various procedures have changed for some time, or forever.

VUCA volatile uncertain complex ambiguous

There are left-overs of COVID times, such as supply shortages. Leading to temporarily slowed down or idle production, shrinking markets … All of that has also changed routine processes: Situational agile action was required. Until new routines were established, with new processes using new tools – in Home Office. Which led to the good old times were being glorified, often – with nostalgy. And the war against Ucraine makes all of this even more pressing: not only are chips in short supply, but also wheat… So, the change to New Normal, with Home Office and Mobile Working, is not organic, but happens in the middle of crisis managemnt and problem solving!

Implications for personnel management under “New Normal”:

Here was and is still a bit of grief work to do. We have found that in process workshops or CIP initiatives, in which the plusses and Minusses of the old procedures are evaluated, and innovations are jointly developed, allows that. And leads to commitment.

5. Regular meetings stabilize cooperation and atmosphere - but there is a risk of neglect!

Daily stand ups, “morning round tables”, 9 o’clock meetings in the management team etc. serve to exchange information, plan, monitor progress and start initiatives. And of course the needed small talk.

These rounds can also be continued in home offices, quite as “close to the original” as possible. At least initially, they could take longer because the tools had to be rectified first. But also because we all were drilling somewhat deeper – a good thing! However, less exciting (to tell the truth: boring) mandatory dates have long since been added to the important and exciting meetings.

Implications for personnel management in the New Normal:

Disciplined planning helps. Pay attention to correctly invite participants (those who have something to say about the topic) and also to brevity and conciseness, a clear and strict agenda! The manager is again a role model for holding the meetings. Your own punctual appearance for video conferences, constant presence, full concentration (mobile phone off!) cause exactly the same behavior among employees.

6. Informal contacts, even small talk are part of work.

Such encounters, which occur “just so” on the shopfloor, in the office or laboratory almost unnoticed, keep “the machine running”. Even the rumor mill belongs here! In the virtual realm mostly just pre-planned meetings happen. For some, this is the true meaning of “social isolation”.

Consequences for personnel management: Many employees quickly created similar informal events in virtuality: Virtual coffee, posting their own lunch. Small joyful tasks for everyone were quickly invented: taking photos of yourself at your desk, doing yoga and gymnastics together, online games (which you must not install on the company computer…). Smile and wave when small children, or cats, crawl or stumble into the picture – we all can allow or enjoy it, everyone can do it and we’re happy!

In the meantime, however, some things have become a bit stale. The following applies to the current situation, the New Normal: pertinent initiatives are also management tasks! Leadership should signal interest and initiate it among direct reports. Note: if one can organize, motivate and discipline oneself as an employee in the office, she or he can also do this in the home office. You can trust! This is done to maintain the relationship. And humor helps as long as it doesn’t slide into silliness or an end in itself.

So for the time being...

All of these experiences made during last year and right now, may be used as ideas for further action. But also to initiate reflection on one’s own attitudes. More so, this text should be understood as work in progress, in which the so minded reader is invited to take part! I look forward to emails and MS Teams / Zoom invitations – and in the above sense, to phone calls!

New Normal in Leadership: Critical Issues