There Are No Miracle Hangover Cures

As we crawl into early 2021, hoping that a combination of caution, vaccines and old-fashioned luck will return us to something resembling “normal,” 2020’s COVID hangover is steamrolling toward most of us and, when it kicks in, a brave face along with a powerful analgesic will be needed to see us through.

by Patric Nagel

ome years back (okay, decades ago if I’m willing to show my age), I internalized an important life lesson: The morning after is seldom worth the night before. As much fun as it is to have fun, too much fun will lead to some serious misery the next day and, no matter what some might wish, there is no miracle cure for the headache other than being 21 years old and mostly invincible.

This truism extends beyond the repercussions of celebrating. As we crawl into early 2021, hoping that a combination of caution, vaccines and old-fashioned luck will return us to something resembling “normal,” 2020’s COVID hangover is steamrolling toward most of us and, when it kicks in, a brave face along with a powerful analgesic will be needed to see us through. Equally important, getting ourselves, our teams and our businesses successfully past the coming pandemic hangover will definitely require a plan.

The Rearview Mirror

With the benefit of hindsight, I recognize that last year was ultimately filled with personal good fortune. My family and I were healthy, I was able to remain productive throughout the year and my company was identified as an essential services provider, which permitted us to avoid forced closures. Thankfully, with consistent, rigorous safety protocols, none of our employees fell ill. With that said, the year was hardly free of pain. Colleagues and friends saw individuals in their own circles become ill, a few seriously. Acquaintances lost jobs, and at least one lost their home. Everyone at our company shared in the repercussions of revenue declines through a series of across-the-board wage reductions, furloughs and reduced hours of work. These actions, recapped in a single, brief sentence, were the unavoidable outcome of long and painful contemplation and management debate. When communicated to the team with transparency and candor, these steps were understood to be a necessary component for the ongoing viability of the company, one where we are all grateful to work. By all appearances, the sacrifices were worthwhile; we will survive to plan and execute our next fiscal year throughout the weeks ahead.

Curves Ahead

While we’re all hopeful for the change 2021 may bring, we should also anticipate a big booming hangover as an inevitable part of the challenge ahead. The obligations of a new business year are familiar: establishing sales, spending and profit budgets that form an organization-wide commitment to stakeholders; planning customer engagements that will inspire continued confidence and reinforce the need for them to continue to invest their constrained resources in our services; and the renewal of strategies and tactics that will allow for optimized execution against our brand promise of quality, reliability, and expertise. Less typical will be the execution environment and the impact it may have on our teams. The turn of the calendar to 2021 didn’t magically eliminate coronavirus, and our staff is still compelled to social distance, wear masks and sanitize their hands as though preparing for surgery. As with so many, our colleagues are exhibiting pandemic fatigue, their patience for the new way of working is wearing thin and their tolerance for ongoing austerity measures is taxed. Pair these challenges with identical circumstances in the workplaces of each of our customers and we expect to again be working in another unprecedented environment, better perhaps than 2020 but still difficult and made complex by impatience and disheartenment all around.

These long-term commitments to action are part of our brand promises that support and protect environmental, social and governance priorities. In short, if the market and our colleagues’ expectations lead to headaches, we will trust our traditional approaches, modified by last year’s teachings, and the pre-negotiated openness for in-year course corrections to be our “aspirin.”

To successfully deliver on the leadership obligations for the business, we will rely on traditional approaches, prudently modified to reflect the new, near universal reality facing teams in all businesses. Establishing 2021 budgets that will satisfy all stakeholders while protecting successful delivery will require a confident mindset teamed with a precondition for fluidity. Knowing our business, informed by the experience of 2020’s impact on revenue and profit, will allow us to make reasonable estimates about the near-term future. Going into atypical detail on the assumptions and logic behind those forecasts with stakeholders will establish an acceptable basis from which required changes can be made at designated gating points throughout the coming year if unpredicted events overtake or unduly influence our prudent estimates. The past year taught us we cannot predict the future, but our expertise can still form the underpinnings of strong, well-considered assumptions. Sharing that internal approach when discussing the coming year with key customers should help create a new level of confidence in our partnerships. Our open acceptance of uncertainty and discussions about the factors that are causing our clients sleepless nights will, ideally, put us on comparable footing. Doing our utmost as a vendor to deliver on commitments, even in an uncertain environment, will, for many customers, create a “duty” to make every effort to reciprocate the effort to the extent their business circumstances will allow.

The Old and the New

The new processes established in 2020 to allow us to successfully deliver against customer expectations during our period of skeleton staffing won’t be (and shouldn’t be) turned off with the flip of the calendar. Some of these forced changes made us better. Employees who, understandably, accepted new ways of working as a near-term necessity for survival are expected to be disappointed – angry even – when told that entrenching some operational efficiencies will become the new way of working. What was initially accepted as a stopgap to help support the successful navigation of the pandemic will be opposed by those who perceive changes to no longer be required. Again, relying on the traditional best practices of transparency and open communication will be our preferred approach. With business results remaining on an uncertain path for the next year(s), we will operate in a way that protects results and the jobs that come with them, delivers on customer and stakeholder expectations, and allows us to maintain the bedrock elements of our business. These long-term commitments to action are part of our brand promises that support and protect environmental, social and governance priorities. In short, if the market and our colleagues’ expectations lead to headaches, we will trust our traditional approaches, modified by last year’s teachings, and the pre-negotiated openness for in-year course corrections to be our “aspirin.” While not a cure for all that might ail us, this approach should help to dull the pain of one more less-than-normal year ahead.