Well, we are now closing in on the last leg of the year, it has been a busy year in many ways, with a lot of surprises for us all. Anyway, I shall not complain, on the contrary, its been great so far in many ways and let’s hope it keeps on getting better for all of our sakes.

It’s becoming obvious that it’s no longer a question about waiting for the pandemic to past, it’s more about how to cope with business and the pandemic at the same time.

It’s also obvious that companies are adapting to conducting business both from home and online, even though some are getting quite tired of endless online meetings without any clear agenda or purpose.

When I coach different companies, the challenges are not always there for you to see immediately, in many cases you have to spend some time to get beneath the surface so you can start to build a picture of what the issues are or what the restrains are.

In some cases it can take a day or two, but in other cases you need to look further due to that the issues  and constraints are not always clear for managers and employees either.

It’s not about looking for trouble within the company, it’s more about looking for any low hanging fruits, issues and constraints that have a big impact on the company or staff without violating anyone and that are fairly easy to correct.

In most cases it’s more about having a outside view of what needs to be done, it can be anything from restoring trust or confidence to structure expectations and collaboration between management and staff.

In other cases it’s more about helping them to reconstruct their business model so they can cope with change, external or internal, such as handling the impact of the pandemic or keeping up the momentum even though there are some pot holes on the road ahead.

It’s not uncommon that companies are well aware what needs to be done, but they have issues in how to keep up the momentum, in some cases they need someone else holding them accountable for what they need to do, or just reminding them about it from time to time.

In other cases it’s more about making sure everyone are doing fine and if they need any form of debriefing  or coaching then I am all ears and we can have conversation about it, of course everything is said in confidence.

Today you will find that some issues are new and common among both big and small companies, its quite clear that some companies have to take a look on how the conduct their daily work  both from home or at work and online.

One of the issues that has started to constrain companies are online meetings,  sometimes endless meetings, especially when they have to attend to one meeting after the other, sometimes without a break between them.

I am sure the solution is more about a combination between online and face to face meetings and both working from home and at the office, its also part of the solution to travel a bit, by car if possible instead of by air or public transports of any sort if you can avoid it.

It’s probably also part of the solution to rotate staff at the office if possible, in such a way that one third or at least half the staff won’t meet anyone else at the office from an other group if it can be avoided.

There is a lot of companies that are looking over how they are supposed to conduct their business from now on, it will not necessarily be easy and it can actually become even more difficult if the pandemic will keep on affecting  us all for a year or two more.

It’s far from over yet, it’s more about making sure how to keep the momentum going and making sure we don’t wear down our staff over time in such away that they can’t keep up with what is needed to be done.

Make sure the staff are part of the solution, don’t just impose your own solution of running the company onto them, the best way is to include them by sharing yours and theirs thoughts in such a way, that everyone feels listen too and trusted.

Its better to be the solution by talking to each other, if that’s an issue I can always help you if necessary, but it’s not a quick fix, because you have to tackle the situation in another way, but thats another story.

Christopher Bell Blomquist Consulting
Managing Director
Lead Negotiator Consultant
Scotwork Sweden