How to prepare for the next normal: Awareness. The Monarch butterfly and New normal during the Covid-19 pandemic

The stress Covid-19 crisis is calling upon the business world, goes far and beyond business themselves and all the financial constrains that they have been facing. That we know.

Under dire circumstances, leaders need to rise to the level of the circumstances, but first need to level themselves up. Roadblocks are just that, unexpected and out-of-our-reach circumstances that represent a difficulty. It does not necessarily mean a critical change of course, usually just some adjustments.

The Foodservice industry -our industry-, has proven to be extremely sensitive to these circumstances. But at the same time, as every dish prepared, it is full of resources and ideas to creatively build in the needed resilience to overcome this obstacle as many others before.

This crisis has reshaped the industry; in some cases, accelerating previous trends, boosting others believed to have reached its peak, or certainly exposing to their most endurances of test ever some old well stablished practices and business models.

All this resembles the Monarch butterfly, a never-ending cycle of long journeys, resilience endurance and metamorphosis. Our industry will emerge different in appearance, but for sure, made with the same raw ingredients that are imbodied within it, to adapt to the “new normal”.

What does the new normal look like for the Foodservice industry?

It is not our intention to lecture about what we foresee as a full picture.  However, in our opinion, it is very likely that until we get an efficient vaccine program world-wide available, the new normal will include:

“Shelter in place orders” whether locally or Statewide, it is likely that we will face new transit and business restrictions, and therefore, new drops in consumers’ willingness to dine in. Are we ready for non-dine-in options?

Confidence and trust: while relaxing social distancing might look like a good and positive idea to avoid “the problem”, it might give a wrong impression to those customers willing to dine in, but looking for places to do it the safe way. Do we have our best value in a to-go packet? Is there something I could add to my business that would keep a steady sale in an only to-go environment?

Personal Safety: we all understand that PPE was not part of our lives and it is not comfortable wearing it while working.  So, it might seem to be a good idea to relax the so tense environment not using the PPE. But what about each one of your employees? how are they feeling by relaxing the rules? Any sick in calls? After all sacrifices most of the foodservice operators have done to keep in business, can we afford not having available and in good health any of our current workers? Are they giving themselves their 110%?

Product shortages, we have seen not only prices going up, but also important disruptions in supply chains due to problems mainly in middlemen industries such as slaughterhouse or packaging facilities. We have also seen products shortages even though most Distributors have valued relations with current customers over possible new gains from new business. It is worthy to take notes on what your Distributor is doing? How are they playing their part in minimizing the impact? Commitment and fidelity from Distributors toward their customers are what is shining. How is your relationship like with your Distributor? Are you working with the right people? Any problem solving under such dire circumstances?

Personnel shortages, if we want to keep in business, we need to have personnel available in an errant job market due to coronavirus infections and mandatory quarantines. Are we highly dependent on labor to keep on business?

Need for communications:  consumers are eager for information and they are spending increasing amounts of time in front of their screens. Do we have an online strategy? What is the message we want to send to our partners and customers?

What should foodservice businesses start doing in the next normal?

We need to deal with the fact that the new normal is taking us to extreme situations.  Are we prepared to do so? We certainly have proven we are made with what it takes to build the resilience required.  But are we ready to help our business to go through the vital metamorphosis indispensable to reach the desired road to recovery?

Have we had any successful story during this pandemic time? How did the story develop? What was that “single action” our business did that made it happen? How can we replicate that “single action” to keep building new success stories?

Leaders are currently obliged to take a pause, review basic steps and act towards: Awareness, Road map, and Measurements.

Becoming aware is not the same as fatalism.

This seems to be a new crisis, out of control due to it touches upon many areas and levels of our lives. Nevertheless, -individually speaking- this crisis also has something in common with many previous crises we went through before. Therefore, we should start handling the same way and work our ways out of it. It is about being aware of the situation to understand the options we have, and start leading by example.

Awareness refers to a business leader getting to know not only his/her people’s interests and needs, but also the essentials and welfares of others around the industry too.  Will we keep selling experiences? Or, will we also have to focus on emotions as an important part of such experiences? How can we migrate from what we are doing to what is expected?

Consciousness also means recognizing our strengths. What is the service and/or goods that drive-in our customers? Too often, we just focus our attention and organization efforts on things we need to change to improve, or things that individuals did wrong. That is reasonable, but should not be the starting point. Change is always demanding.  It requires efforts and change management to face resistance within the organization. Pointing out mistakes and punishing staff because of them while focusing the organization on it, will take a toll on the person or team responsible for such mistake.  This kind of management, usually creates a punishable culture within the organization developing into fear to recognizing mistakes

On the other hand, encouraging existing good practices, ideas, and results takes so little energy and yet, generates enormous benefits to the business.  The reasons? it is already in place and performed by someone in your team, it provides recognition and grows loyalty while creating a much better place to work, and it motivates a healthy competitive improvement environment among coworkers and role modeling among members of your team.

Most of the times, just like the caterpillar while doing the metamorphosis, our companies already have all necessary tools to overcome the crisis. Still, those tools need to be identified, put to work and build on strong foundations to face the challenges the new normal will impose for the time coming.

“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.” (Maya Angelou)

What about your company? What is that unique experience based on which you are building up your response?

Be safe, and keep moving forward.