The Undercover Boss: Discerning the Customer Story in Rich Detail

The COVID-19 pandemic has produced radical change in our lives, our work, and our mind-sets. Not only did organizations need to adapt overnight in ways that normally may have taken months or years, these changes keep coming in waves, constantly shifting circumstances and actions needed. Pre-pandemic, we had been taking a close look at how industry disruption was calling for reinvented business models, and documented some of our findings in our research, “Can CEOs Be Un-disruptable?” But the disruptive changes wrought by this pandemic outstrip even our original characterization of disruption. There have been unprecedented disruptions: employees suddenly working from home en masse; channels for commerce funneled into mandated social distancing; some industries springing up where others have disappeared. Amid this wholesale displacement, business leaders across many industries have responded to the crisis in innovative, humanitarian, and relatively selfless ways. Whether focused inwardly upon their organizations or outwardly toward the world, leaders should be visible, engaged and empathetic. In the two years preceding COVID-19, we studied those traits that would help business leaders address disruption, and why developing these traits further is important during rapidly changing times. How did they bring their organizations to success and innovation through wave after wave of disruption?

Follow WWD on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook.

from WWDWWD https://ift.tt/3hZiUDC