Finding opportunities in times of crisis | Mark Carter | Resilience

Business resilience in the time of COVID-19

At ICMI we are fortunate to have Australia’s best business thinkers in our stable. Our speakers are experts in change management, dealing with disruption and guiding businesses through uncharted waters.

The current health crisis presents several challenges in both protecting our staff’s health today, and protecting their income tomorrow as business realities set in. With this in mind, we’ve asked our speakers to share their insights on how businesses can ride the shockwave and minimise the impact.

About the Author:
Once a learning and development leader with Contiki Holidays, Mark Carter learned plenty about leadership in times of crisis and disruption. He shares valuable insights on how to stretch personal growth and future business success.

Here’s what he had to say:

Finding opportunities in times of crisis

As with any major disturbance or crisis, it is by adopting characteristics of calmness, underpinned by resilience and creativity, that will help navigate the challenge at hand. After all, within every danger also lies an opportunity.

In this case, that opportunity might be to utilise any downtime or disruption towards important activities otherwise so often put off: Strategic creativity, innovation, training or development amongst them. These are frequently first to get sacrificed when calendars are full or when business is ticking along as usual or even booming.

There are events and training initiatives currently being impacted. You can still proceed targeting some primary intentional outcomes: sharing knowledge, wisdom, inspiration or driving adoption of critical, important strategic outcomes as intended.

It’s also an opportunity to empower leaders to display sought after traits (calmness, adaptability, empathy) or to utilise their skills as improved coaches. Similarly, this provides an opportunity for individuals to build a better habit of dedicated time for learning. Accessing their digital academies and quality-curated micro content.

We live in such a hyper-connected world that all of these things can be done within office or from home. It’s the commitment to making them happen. At Contiki Holidays, I’d encountered enough calamities, disruptions and drama to know no matter the challenge faced, a way will be found through. Perhaps you’ll simultaneously find a way to stretch personal growth and future business success.

This article is part of our blog series on business resilience.
Learn more about Mark here