The concept of crisis
The concept (crisis) is a controversial concept. You may find yourself in a situation that you consider carries a real crisis for you, and it is actually a tremendous opportunity that can change your entire life for the better.
And when institutions are exposed to crises, their administrative and executive capabilities emerge and they are forced to change their method of work. Either that change leads to their failure and join a long, wide line of companies and institutions whose journey ended in failure, or in the end, they will be crowned with greater successes to become stronger and greater than they were.
In response to the renewed Coronavirus pandemic known as Covid-19, innovators are racing individuals and organizations to provide their services and strengthen their presence in the labor market and in the community services sector.
When we look at the current health crisis, we are amazed at the resulting forms of change and innovation in several fields and different sectors, such as the installation of modern medicines and the manufacture of advanced medical devices, in addition to the clear improvement in the performance of health care services, and the booms in supply chain operations, production and related transactions.
We see how many beverage factories around the world have turned to the production of hand sanitizers, and many engineering companies have begun to use 3D printers to manufacture tools and equipment that help in the face of the epidemic and save lives.
The common denominator between these interventions is that they all seek to face challenges and solve problems, and this is the core and core of innovation. We find that they are driven by the innate nature of the human being to continue his contacts, meet needs in crises, and provide a helping hand when adversity intensifies, which is what we actually call human-centered design.
Crises provide unique conditions that allow innovators to unleash their ideas and move more freely to create rapid and impactful change. And it pushes us to do our best to provide assistance, and opens the fields for work teams in various institutions to do their work and motivates them to put forward the most innovative ideas in the service of their organizations' business.
How do crises increase opportunities for innovation?
During the crisis in organizations, several major transformations occur, and understanding them helps us seize the opportunity to make positive change and enhance the conditions for creative thinking and innovative work, as we know that one of the most important daily challenges in organizations is stimulating performance and promoting belonging to achieve the goals of the institution.
And during crises, the motivational energy usually increases in the workforce for fear of losing their job. And here comes the role of the institution’s management to direct those energies towards a clear goal to solve the crisis ... as it is often not just a rich source of physical energy and effort. Rather, it may be a significant wave of creative ideas, as a crisis situation forces work teams to exchange ideas that each of them usually keeps for himself and creates organizational courage to take action to support a specific goal that cannot be thought of in normal times.
Crises also highlight weaknesses in the work environment, small and large problems, and open our eyes to challenges that we sometimes ignore and to problems that we did not realize existed in the first place.
It gives us a different view on the work system and pushes us to face the truth about how our systems work and who contributes to the progress and development of our business and who is not. Suddenly, there are different approaches and creative ways to do business better and more efficiently.
Organizational structure and performance method
As for the organizational structure and performance method, institutions grow and work to strengthen their structures to increase the ability to perform work efficiently and with high quality and seek to predict the future by studying the target market in order to achieve stability. Crises come and change everything.
As the COVID-19 epidemic crisis has transformed the way many delivery companies and electronic salesmen manage their work methods, after they have worked to expand and develop their business models over many years to raise quality to the maximum extent, as they have been working in a manner of shipping smaller stocks and moving them more quickly to gain confidence. And customer acquisition.
With the narrowing of the transport movement, she found herself obliged to bypass many carefully controlled processes in favor of shortening the movement and working to collect larger quantities of shipments and send them with one shipment, even if this affected the delivery dates. They have also drastically reduced their bureaucratic procedures of administrative reviews and approvals, allowing for the application of a new and energetic model of thinking to meet that challenge.
Finally, the crisis requires an extraordinary activity to move and change, as the pace of thinking increases, decision-making mechanisms are active, and direct orders to implement.
Institutions that fall into the nets of "overdoing it before making decisions" should start by changing their way of working and move towards carrying out rapid experiments and evaluating performance and then carrying out other experiments based on lessons learned. These experimentation processes allow for unleashing the testing of different thinking models, some of which may prove to be futile, so we benefit from performance experiences, and move forward to experiment again towards creativity, innovation and success.