Seven Ways To Make Business Truly Sustainable Post-COVID: #5 Don’t try to ‘go it alone’ to solve difficult problems

We humans are a spectacularly resilient species. Wars, famines, plagues, economic crashes – we dust ourselves off and press on. So we will get beyond COVID-19. But is it too much to hope that, devastating as the virus’s effects are proving, our survival could lead on to a better world?

#5 Don’t try to ‘go it alone’ to solve difficult problems – A clear lesson of the pandemic has been the need to pool as many relevant resources as possible to find ways to tackle a major challenge. And, according to Michael Butler, now Professor of Management at Bangor Business School, UK, it’s a lesson that the commercial sector should be taking careful note of. “Collaboration is a fruitful way forward because it brings together inter-disciplinary experts who collectively have creative insight to identify solutions,” he says. However, his research shows that making it work requires participative and authentic leadership. And it’s possible that the response to COVID-19 could accelerate the development and spread of new collaborative models. “Open strategy could significantly change innovation processes because within it businesses acknowledge what they do not know, especially during uncertainty, and so reach out to various stakeholders who help with supply chain inputs to decision making and future preparedness. But key to successful collaboration is a combination of factors, leading change, but also an inclusive and productive culture which needs to be underpinned by revised reward systems and promotion paths to embed partnership.”