Knowledge and innovation in times of uncertainty

Abstract

Innovation seems to be a buzzword once again, however, the context and motivation have, without doubt, altered. The pandemic, hot on the heels of Brexit, detracted from the initial changes, and in some cases the challenges, that leaving the European Union presented for many organisations. However, whilst both the challenges and opportunities of Brexit will become ever clearer over the coming months, there is the pandemic, which required immediate innovation as both large and small organisations, across all sectors, sought to adapt, pivot and hopefully survive this most difficult of times. We have seen fascinating, previously unseen, levels of technology adoption, a variety of platforms and tools, many which have been available to us for some time, suddenly became our lifeline, yet in a pre-pandemic world, many of these sat unused within organisations. The simple task of including someone external to the physical room via a telephone line was often fraught with complexity, but now we have seen organisations adopting technologies almost overnight and deploying new tech within days which was previously scheduled as part of lengthy change programmes. We have seen people showing huge resilience and adaptability as the requirement to adopt new technology and accept new ways of working impacted everyone. The pandemic made virtual meetings commonplace, and the innovation we saw was in cultural adaption and adoption, and the speed of change, rather than the immediate design or coding of new technologies. The technology already existed and, in many cases, had been available to adopt within organisations for some time. Now, midway through 2021, as we move hopefully and cautiously towards the easing of the restrictions that the pandemic has placed on our lives, a hybrid and blended working model is emerging. Not just between work and home, but also between hybrid meetings, being held “in real life” and concurrently in a virtual space, where multiple participants are present via whichever format works best for them. Organisations are seeing the benefits both in terms of reduced operating costs from travel and an increase in the ease of access to their people. This shift in working is astonishing if we reflect to prepandemic times, when genuine inclusion of anyone not “in the room” was often too difficult and culturally, simply opting to participate virtually was frequently not an option. Flying around the world for meetings was commonplace. So, what does all of this mean for organisations as they continue to pivot and adapt, how does innovation work in this new world, what does this paradigm shift mean, not just in terms of where we work, but how we work and how we form and develop engagement with the places we work. What does this mean for productivity? As we seek to reimagine our organisations, we have some immediate areas to focus on. However, as the new paradigm settles, we can expect to see familiar questions resurfacing, such as access to knowledge, how to harness the power of your workforce to innovate, how to grow your business and maintain productivity for the long term. Reimagining our organisations today, still overshadowed by the pandemic, is a combination of immediate questions around hybrid working models, employment contracts, productivity, workspace, collaboration and real estate requirements. As we move forward, I can see three key areas worthy of early leadership attention: