Education is an Industry!

Education is an enterprise

Education is an industry. You may look at it as a process of civilization, but unless you consider it to be an enterprise, it will not make you wealthy.

The New Normal: Adapt, Adopt, until you become Adept!

The New Normal: 
Adapt, Adopt, until you become Adept!

Many a business finds itself in challenging situations because their pre-COVID-19 customers, suppliers and work skills that they relied upon are simply not available and in many cases not there at all. Many of the old skill bases that were needed to run businesses depended on paradigms that have been collapsed by the pandemic and will take time to rebuild. Banks are having to reschedule loans; landlords have adjusted terms just to be able to keep their tenants. If they let them go and stuck to contract terms, they would not be able to get other tenants for the property, at least for the short term. The lack of customers and the changes in consumer priorities are forcing businesses to rethink their business models and develop strategies for new products, services and service delivery that fit into the new normal environment.

What does this mean for the average business? I call it “average” business, not because the business small, big or medium sized, but because every business must have a core strategy for survival that enables success. The average business will be thinking about the “basics” before it moves to thinking about competitiveness, growth and market share. In other words, the average business must first of all continue to exist before it can thrive in the future. The average business must adapt, adopt and become adept at meeting the demands of the New Normal. While most people will think of this as a short-term measure, it is a major organization success competence. James Oliver Rigney Jr, the American author said, “The oak fought the wind and was broken, the willow bent when it must and survived”.

When I put the question to a business seminar on which organizations would survive in the New Normal, 75% respondents said those that were flexible and open to restructuring, this was against options that included “innovation”, “customer focused” and “financially secure”. The business responses of the organizations described in the first paragraph do not make conventional business sense and rescheduling loans is not a profit generating activity. However, in the circumstances it does appear not only prudent, but very wise. Indeed, these businesses have bought themselves time while acting to reposition themselves in the New Normal market. As they adapt to the new conditions, they will adopt practices that will become part of their organization competencies, business repertoire, knowledge base and understanding of the market. In time they will become adept and gain superior and competitive skills at profiting from these sacrificial adjustments. They will succeed in the long term because they were willing to adapt, adopt until they became adept!  

How To become an Entrepreneurial Employee in the New Normal

The New Normal
 Entrepreneurial Employee

The term “entrepreneurial employee” sounds like some sort of paradox, but it need not be. During a training forum for employees on how to cope with the New Normal, it became clear that the dependent employee of the past would not fit into the New Normal environment. The old paradigm on the employee’s complete reliance, dependence and “allegiance” to an employer was put to question. The fact that the nature of employment has changed means that employees also need to change with the times. Depending on your employer to pay your rent, insurance, health care, mortgage payment and secure your bank loan has been put in serious jeopardy.

The COVID-19 pandemic has provided two signals that the New Normal employee needs to consider seriously. The first is that you can lose your job. In fact, the job is not yours and was not yours in the first place! Second, your terms of engagement can change. Indeed, many employees are either on a reduced pay structure just to allow them to keep a job. Two things emerge from this scenario. First the employee has more time on their hands and two, employees need to manage and supervise themselves. In other words, employee dependence on the employers has shifted to managing their own time and productive activity. If you haven’t got it yet, all I am saying is that employees have been forced into the realm of personal enterprise.

In the realm of enterprise, you must think for yourself, plan for yourself and work for yourself. A major shift from the old days of employment. In the world of enterprise, the employee thinks like an entrepreneur and plans his day, organizes his time and engages income generating activities. If you have a contractual obligation to work half-day, you can use the other half of the day to engage in other productive activity. You can plant a kitchen garden or “balcony garden” in couple of pots around the house to get some food on the table and help you spend less on groceries. You can engage in teaching and home schooling your children to read. You can also coach the neighbor's kids to play the violin at a fee. You can negotiate with your employer as an independent contractor to assign you other jobs apart from your previous position. You may, for example, take over the office cleaning contract or take up a commission sales assignment to drive your personal enterprise. This will require both humility and flexibility on your part. If you believe you are an accountant by birth, by design and by death you may never be able to humble yourself to a salesman position.

As an entrepreneur you must think about investment and multiply your sources of income. You must build your own house and look after your own enterprise to survive the long term. You must look after your own interests as much as you receive a wage for the services you provide to your former full-time employer. Many employees struggle with this form of “disloyalty”, but the reality is unless you look out for yourself no one else will. You simply must become an entrepreneurial employee.  

Click here to download the App and become and learn to be an entrepreneurial employee

Master Class: How to Lead Corporate Transformation, in the New Normal!

Master Class
How to Lead Corporate Transformation: 

The New Normal

Kindly accept my personal invitation to register for our Master Class on the principles and practice of transformation to equip you develop a “strategy to Success” model that will help your organization navigate the current global industrial slowdown occasioned by the corona virus pandemic. The Pandemic has ushered in a new and challenging economic season termed the “New Normal”. The Master Class is designed for Corporate leaders, Company and Organization managers, Institution administrators and Function supervisors responsible for initiating learning, change and innovation in a business.

Allan Bukusi will present practical business models based on his recent researched study on How to lead corporate transformation that are urgent and relevant in this season. Click here to register for the Master Class Thursday 18^th June 2020 from 10.00-1200 EAT on zoom. The Master Class will empower managers to design strategies and effective business models to move the business forward, successfully tackle the present and prepare for the future growth. You are encouraged to attend the Master Class with an office colleague so that you can share and determine how to follow up and implement ideas shared on the program in your organization.

Equipping Employees for the New Normal

Equipping Employees for the New Normal

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on global trade and local business is reshaping the work environment. Employee – employer relations are becoming more plastic in the New Normal. Indeed, there have been significant job cuts and layoffs in markets around the world. The implementation of “social distancing” has forced employees to work from home and show proof of productivity before they are paid. What used to be “performance management” has become a “productivity challenge”. Yet, employees still have personal goals, career aspirations and development plans to achieve in their own lives!

Click here to register for our business forum on Thursday 11^th June 2020 from 10.00-1200 EAT on zoom. You will find out the core skills and key competencies you need to keep your career on course, prepare for your next work assignment and realize your personal aspirations in the New Normal employment environment.

Regards,

Allan Bukusi, 

Author of How To Prosper in Employment.

Four Business Defining Statements from COVID -19

FOUR BUSINESS DEFINING STATEMENTS FROM COVID-19

Here are four powerful statements I have picked up on our journey through this “impossible” season that will stay with us for a long time.

“To make a change something has to die or reach a dead end!”

The realization of the need to change may be understood and acknowledged for a long time. But is only when what you rely on is broken, lost or removed from your control that you begin to look for something else to take its place. Indeed, you have to finish college before you start thinking seriously about moving out of home. You may have to lose a job before you realize that you needed to upscale your skills to become more relevant and remain employable. No, COVID did not do this to us, it only served to bring it up.

“Re-invent yourself and make yourself relevant irrespective of what happens”

The fact that things are changing around you and that you are getting older and that the skills you learned long ago are getting out of date are a wake-up call for all of us to keep growing changing and becoming better at what we do. Enterprises know this and invest huge resources in developing business approaches and strategies to keep moving. Indeed, the market leaders always have several new products lined up for whatever season lies ahead. How much time do we take to re-invent ourselves, re-position ourselves in the market and adapt to changing conditions around us?  

“Professionals need to deconstruct what they know”

Many professionals have high qualifications and impressive certificates and can analyse anything in their field to the point of paralysis. Nonetheless, very few of them are able to deconstruct what they know into usable products, services and skill sets that can be consumed by the market or improve the society and environment in which they live. We call those special kind of people “innovators”, but they are really just professionals with the courage to apply what they know.

“reconnect with your customers”

COVID 19 has created a social distance between business and its customers. It was a self-serving relationship of needs and wants that was taken for granted. Now the relationship is being informed by “you simply cannot have it”. It is easy to say that this can be rectified by short dose “good” customer service. Nonetheless, you can be sure that it will not be business as usual in the days ahead. The customer is changing and making decisions about his relationship with business in the days ahead. But how can you reconnect with people you don’t even know. The struggle businesses will have in the long term is to show that they really cared for their customers when things were not so rosy and glossy.

Allan Bukusi

Retooling Professionals for the "New Normal"

Retooling for the New Normal

In the face of the impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic, professionals have not been spared the loss of jobs, consultancy assignments and opportunities to advance their careers. However, Professionals have a special role to play in the advancement of the “New Normal”. But to do so effectively, they will need retooling. Join us to find out how you can retool and reposition yourself for survival and success in the new normal. Click here to Register for the zoom meeting to be held 4^th June 2020 at 10.00hrs EAT.