Workplace Strategy in a VUCA Environment.
The challenges facing Facilities Managers in 2020 have significantly changed over the past number of years - climate change, political uncertainty, the banking crisis, and now the Corona Virus are all changing the workplace, not just for Facilities Management but for society and the world we live in.
There can be no denying that in a world characterized by VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous environment), Facilities and Workplace leaders now have a choice to make, accept the unknown and focus on reacting at the moment or seek out new ways to observe and proactively guide their workplace in a manner that will counteract the risks and impacts associated with our new VUCA environment.
So how can we move not just from reactive to proactive, but to adaptive?
I recently undertook a strategic review on how to adapt and present a dynamic approach to mitigate the risk associated with VUCA, allowing organizations to develop strategies that not only ensure long-term sustainable prosperity but also seek out the opportunity to leverage the benefits of a VUCA environment.
The challenge is to change how we plan strategically and to base our strategy on the core principles of change management.
My 4 Ds model focuses on the key changes that need to be implemented to deliver long term success
Drive Change - Don’t wait for the burning platform before seeking to change. Kotter’s eight step model works well
Establish a sense of urgency about the need to achieve change
Create a guiding coalition
Develop a vision and strategy
Communicate the change vision
Empower broad-based action
Generate short-term wins
Consolidate gains and produce more change
Anchor new approaches in the corporate culture
Diversification - this spreads and disseminates risk, therefore reducing the impact of unforeseen events. This could be in terms of geographic property portfolio, services offered, customers and resources.
Data - Workplace technologies, IT platforms, and ERP systems - ensuring real time internal information to be able to react immediately to an event, combined with Local Knowledge utilization, therefore adapting to trigger points to improve decision-making in an accelerated fashion
Dynamic - Agile and dynamic Leadership and resource management to steer the organization through the changing environment at pace.
Change isn’t just coming, it’s here! We now live and work in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world and the sooner the facilities and workplace industry embraces it, the better it will be for our customers and clients.
Stronger together.
Bernard MacOscair
Managing Director
Berka Solutions
“As we grow, we adapt. As we adapt, we learn. As we learn, we create our stories”
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