Three Leadership Lessons from 2020

As we approach the close of 2020, we reflect on a year that tested our community of global leaders in health, security, and productivity like no other time in recent memory.  While the past 12 months have proved to be tumultuous, volatile, and ambiguous, I would like to share some of the lessons we learned in hopes they may be applied to the following year. 

As we usher in 2021 with the inspiration of hope and promise, 3 leadership lessons from 2020 are apparent: technology advantage, demand for leadership, and integration of processes and platforms.  Leaders who focus on these areas  will successfully guide their organizations, product teams, and companies.

1. Technology Advantage

• Productivity
  • Maximizing investments in labor, tooling, and platforms was key in 2020.  The trend will continue in 2021 and we will focus on resilient operations.  Investments in Artificial Intelligence-based platforms will allow us to predict machine maintenance before an outage, supply chain interrupts before they occur. 
    
    
• Collaboration
  • 2020 was the year of remote work and video conferencing.  We learned to work with new platforms, tools, and remote locations, such as the spare bedroom.  2021 will continue the trend, and platforms will be key for continued collaboration across boundaries.

2. Leadership Demand

• Transparency
  • The nature of our work is increasingly collaborative.  Group projects, multiple time-zones, global regions.  In 2020, we dropped the formality of multiple reviews, pre-reads, and dry-runs; the priority was in making information available, not polishing a final product.  Our work products should be transparent, accessible, visible.  And be willing to adjust as the situation changes, conditions improve or degrade.
    
    
• Visibility
  • In 2020, we stopped pretending there are two worlds: one at work and one outside of work.  With civil unrest in cities around the world, it became apparent that our community affects us at work in many ways.  We opened up with leaders, colleagues, staff.  We asked “how are you doing, how are things where you are?”  And we listened with humility.  Being visible with teams will be key in 2021.  Approach humbly, engage with sincerity.
    
    
• Compassion
  • We dealt with unstable video conferencing platforms, interruptions from children during videoconferences, and “you’re not on mute.”  Leaders will go into 2021 with compassion, caring, and patience as we all adjust to new work conditions.

3. Integration Critical

• Through process automation, data governance, process definition
  • The way we worked in 2020 highlighted a number of process inefficiencies.  We quickly dropped non-value-added processes in favor of speed to market approaches.  The increasing demand for information highlighted the need for better integrated data sets, systems, and tools.  In 2021, we will continue to apply techniques such as robotic process automation (RPA), using the opportunity to lean out processes while automating where possible.
• Platform and data interoperability
  • Proverbial “silos of excellence” are examples where we maximized a function or a sub-system process, but failed to address the entire system.  2021 will demand that we break down silos through integration techniques such as data lakes, common access models, interoperability frameworks, and data governance.  Commonality across functional systems will actually increase innovation and allow us to focus on “systems of differentiation” for competitive advantage.

In 2020, we proved the human spirit endures.  From gratitude, to humble engagement, listening with empathy, and servant leadership, we endure.  Focusing on the technology advance, leadership approach, and integration, we will make a positive difference in 2021.

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