Megha Chaturvedi, Account Director – Consumer PR at Adfactors PR, manages communications for CPG, fashion, media, entertainment and consumer durable brands. Megha was also part of the PR Moment 30 Under 30 cohort of 2019.
In this exclusive piece, Megha writes about the kind of changes in approach to business the pandemic has enforced, and suggests ways for brands and professionals to adapt to the new normal. Read on.
There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks when decades happen – Vladimir Lenin
2020, in ways more than one, was the year of many decades. A lot pivoted professionally and personally, and people have had to adjust to new ways of working, learning, socializing and entertaining themselves. The sun has set on the year gone by and a new dawn has ushered in 2021.
If we celebrated the New Year in the way the Chinese do, 2021 would have been called the Year of Reset. Staying the course in a new normal requires speed, agility, foresightedness, and curiosity.
A new normal needs a new nimble approach towards everything we do, and there’s a lot to chew and churn. While everything remains the same, yet very different, it’s an opportunity for us to look at these tenets with revised vigour and urgency.
This is the clarion call to adapt, change, evolve, and to do it quickly. For the new nimble is banking upon us to bring about a new normal: Megha Chaturvedi
Ask more questions: Reclaim your curiosity.
Too many questions may seem exasperating, but if psychologists are to be believed, asking questions is a remarkably potent strategy for improving one’s life in unanticipated, sometimes counter-intuitive ways.
The new normal requires us to be more emotionally adept, think creatively, be braver, develop more contemporary perspectives, and last but not least, be more understanding of one another: Megha Chaturvedi
The new normal requires us to be more emotionally adept, think creatively, be braver, develop more contemporary perspectives, and last but not least, be more understanding of one another. Asking more questions not only amps your leadership skills because you learn better and hence lead better, but also contributes to each of the previously mentioned non-negotiables that the new world demands of us.
The best part is that questioning often helps us break out of those ruts — a trait that the new nimble approach embraces. People and policies should challenge the status-quos by questioning their relevance, need for change, and how they will add value to the new-world-order.
Rationalizing the new normal with foresight
2021 will require us to lay the groundwork for the reset we need. In a world of fragmented futures, we need to view, read, and comprehend things differently. Like us, for brands, too, there is no normal to revert to.
The linear decision-making chain of seeing the future, choosing a direction, and taking action will fail us in the new normal: Megha Chaturvedi
Segmentation models and assumptions will change, and consumer-centricity will remain the most reliable compass for navigating a pathway in this dynamic terrain. The linear decision-making chain of seeing the future, choosing a direction, and taking action will fail us in the new normal.
We will have to visit multiple future-cases, choose alternative approaches and take new measures. In a time where there exist multiple future-scenarios, foresight will allow us to have well-thought-out conversations about uncertainty and help disclose threats and opportunities that are overlooked in a business-as-usual environment. As they say, it’s better (and much needed) to be foresighted than myopic.
Speed and Agility: The driving engines
2021 witnessed organisations, people and governments pivoting in the face of adversity. The healthcare crisis transformed previously arduous and bureaucratic processes into rapid, digitally-enabled decision-making over the course of hours. The COVID crisis had communities of strangers coming together to develop mass grassroots movements in the fights against the pandemic.
Real examples of agility — being alert and responsive to new information and its implications, spotting the opportunity, and then reacting with speed and purpose. The new nimble approach will require us to be agile and be continuous in that endeavour, to welcome changing requirements of the world’s ways successfully.
As organisations are innovative on the fly and demonstrate a high metabolic rate, we should remember this behaviour works wonderS in standard scenarios.
The hack is to retain the sense of urgency, be foresighted about the possible futures and next crisis, and create an order system that values and prioritizes innovation as much as operations: Megha Chaturvedi
Organisations have to balance two key activities: to run businesses effectively while focusing well and enough on innovation. The hack is to retain the sense of urgency, be foresighted about the possible futures and next crisis, and create an order system that values and prioritizes innovation as much as operations.
This is the clarion call to adapt, change, evolve, and to do it quickly. For the new nimble is banking upon us to bring about a new normal.
