With changing times, the 4 Pillars that are needed for any business have to be more aligned than ever. Our 4 Pillars Synergy Model still stands strong yet nimble, making space for uncertain times to unfold while we take a step back and reassess.

A regular April would be about business strategy, targets, hiring, incentives, and much more. But April 2020 has been drastically different for all. Today, survival is key and all business decisions taken are to ensure survival. So we’ve redesigned the 4 pillars model to answer all questions an entrepreneur is battling with, in his survival mode.

THE CHIEF: The most important element in Business Success and Growth (Survival mode: Are you motivated to fight the situation to eventually scale your business? It starts with you.) 

As an entrepreneur do you have an eye on the future or are you planning to shut down to avoid losses?

If you wanted to quit, think of WHY did you start in the first place? The purpose with which you started this business. This is the time to stay true to our purpose to remind your bigger goal.

Your values and purpose will shape your clarity even today. It is your driving force, your motivation to act. At the start of the business, there were certain skills and knowledge which got you to this level of success. Now with the pandemic, what are the new skills and knowledge you need to upgrade that will help you manage and lead your company and transition out of COVID-19 impact effectively? 

Your motivation, clarity, and conviction are the most crucial aspects today.

THE IDEOLOGY: Translating the Vision of the Chief into the company’s DNA (Survival mode: Staying true to your Ideology and keeping your company aligned with the same.)

Things are certainly not going as planned but as the business owner,

• Do you still believe in your vision?
• Is your Strategic Direction for the next 10-15 years still in conjunction with the market and industry shifts? 
• Are you nimble enough to change your direction to let the storm pass and get back on track once it has gone?

This crisis has pushed us back to some degree, but our long term goals are not altered. In spite of this lockdown impact, if we were to achieve the long term goal, what changes need to be made today?

Today the values of the company become very important to keep you and your teams on track and tackle this situation with the right mindset.

THE ROADMAP: Aligning (Long term) Strategic Direction to a Visible Strategy (Survival Mode: Short term is more important than long term. But midterm is the most crucial.)

The Strategic Direction has changed at least for the short term. New ways of working are emerging and changing your value delivery system and the roles of various departments. The Change agenda remains as crucial. You need to rework on your SWOT and account for such pandemics and other acts of God as threats. 

Can you mentally segregate the short term impact and its mitigation versus the goals which we had already laid down? Looking at short term can help you make decisions that will address the current problem at hand with a short term impact, but that may adversely derail your long term goals. Hence it is required to take a step back and look at the current situation from 2 lenses:

• Short term survival and
• Long term plan again to get back on track for your actual (long term) goals.

It’s time to reconstruct a new version of the Roadmap.

While the propensity is to react to short term repair measures, you need to respond with a view on mid-term plans to ensure that the company bounces back on a growth trajectory as soon as possible.

THE RESOURCES: Deploying the key assets effectively and efficiently for Execution (Survival Model: Optimising every resource and understanding if it is a liability or an asset)

Two key resources which need to be looked into are: People & Finances

This is the time to have your teams enhance their contribution. Communicate with them very clearly on the current situation of the company and on the impact that coronavirus has had on the business overall. Only then will they understand and be able to think about what they and their functional teams can do differently to get back on track

While survival is the top priority, a knee jerk reaction could be to slash most resources in order to reduce all the expenses while your business is in a pause mode. But I think the critical sequence of decisions should be

Identification of what the problem areas are and the opportunities for the business.

• What is the priority today?
• Based on this categorization, what kind of resources still need to be deployed for long term impact on opportunities?
• What kind of resources need to be shifted to fix toady’s problems?

An in-depth analysis of the business would be the key to decide on what actions need to be taken amidst this huge economic disruption. Deploying the resources will not just be about answers to surviving today but also keep watering the plants which are the opportunities for tomorrow’s success and scale-up.

Without these 4 pillars being in sync, no company can survive. Revisiting your 4 Pillars and making changes to the strategy will help you survive.

As a business coach, I work with my clients to Start, Stabilise, Survive, and Scale-up. We still haven’t changed our 3 years 3X plans for most family businesses I am coaching. But we have surely redesigned the pillars and finer details to survive in the current times. And once we bounce back we can resurrect the 4 Pillars Synergy Model. (shared below).