Mistakes happen. Everyone makes them. From the best athletes in the world who spend 6 hours a day training, to the CEOs of the most successful companies like Apple, Tesla, Amazon, and many others. 

One of the core mantras of leadership development is to encourage people to make and learn from mistakes. Much of the modern thinking around leadership, change, disruption, and the “new normal” is about creating an environment and culture of innovation where mistakes are encouraged, and key learnings embraced. Like many entrepreneurs, Mark Zuckerberg believes, “Don’t even bother avoiding making mistakes, because you’re going to make tons of mistakes and the important thing is to learn quickly from the mistakes you make and not give up.”

The high intensity of delivering ten 4-hour virtual connections over a two-week period to 56 participants working remotely and in offices throughout Europe and Asia at 2:30 AM eastern time felt vaguely familiar.

At some point during the 4^th and final round of the customized business simulation, when participants were figuring out their final attempts to execute their business strategy and maximize their Enterprise Value, I heard in my head the voice of my favorite Peloton instructor (Sam Yo) say, “This is where it gets sticky and you are going to get a little breathless. If you can, and you know you should, raise the resistance by 1-3.”

And so, the participants did. The teams, running their own global manufacturing business gave it everything they had by analyzing the markets, assessing their competitors, and making their decisions in pricing, marketing, manufacturing, supply chain, and finance. And we (participants and me the instructor) were all breathless when the intense workout was over.

What if I were to tell you that one of the many benefits of the new normal virtual working environment is that employees are seeing and working across the business enterprise and breaking down silos for better collaboration in ways that are exponentially better than they were before?

While many of today’s workers may be reaching their saturation point of virtual meetings, there is an interesting phenomenon happing. In a recent leadership development program I was conducting, one of the participants explained it this way:

“I work in a manufacturing plant in a remote part of the state. People in other functions from around the globe rarely visited us or had anything to do with us. But now, we are having meetings all day with salespeople, finance people, supply chain people, and we are now understanding their business perspectives and challenges in ways we never thought possible.”

In other words, employees aren’t stuck in their silos anymore. They aren’t stuck in the same daily routine devoid of the critical interactions with other functions that drive better collaboration. As a result of this unrealized and disruptive change in the way employees are collaborating better together there is a renewed need for enhanced Business Acumen skills to take advantage of the opportunity to increase business performance.

For many leaders the next few months, and most likely next few years, are going to be uncharted waters. We’ve certainly had disruptions and unfortunate events before, but nothing like this complete reset of the foundational approach to the way leaders do business. While there will be ongoing talk about “back to work,” the “talent shortage,” and a rethinking of the “work-life balance,” there is one area of leadership that I think isn’t being talked about enough: how the disruption is impacting the ability to lead a culture of innovation.

While most business organizations are preparing for their employees to “return to work” this fall, they are  neglecting to also prepare them with the new capabilities that will be needed to survive and thrive in our collective next new normal.

This blog shares ideas and insights about the capabilities needed to be successful in the next new normal based on interviews, focus groups, and observations we have had over the past 18 months of working with learners within large global organizations.

Shifts in Capabilities

The main idea here is that capabilities have shifted. What we once new to be the critical capabilities of success are no longer valid and have been replaced by different or evolved capabilities.