Concerns about inflation and the broader economy have dominated headlines for the past few months. As inflation rates rise, everyone – including businesses – is preparing for uncertainty and what comes next.
The truth is that nobody knows for certain. Deloitte recently published an article that claimed as much. In it, they outlined four potential forecasts for the future, ranging from blue skies to stormy weather. With everything up in the air, we decided to speak to members of Seismic’s leadership team to get their perspectives.
We first spoke with Seismic Executive Vice President of Global Operations Toby Carrington. He summed up his mindset on work ethic and weathering uncertain times in a recent LinkedIn post. In our conversation with Toby, we discussed everything from hiring to driving new efficiencies in times of uncertainty. Check out our conversation below!
Tony: What do you think of when you hear economic uncertainty?
Toby: The last time we talked about economic uncertainty was when COVID-19 started. There was a momentary freeze when nobody knew what was going on. Today, leaders are stopping to assess what’s going on. This period is also different in that just a few months ago we were talking about the Great Resignation and hiring like crazy. Now companies are facing layoffs. is a period when organizations will begin to slow down on their investments.
During COVID, there was a general expectation that the pandemic would pass and that it would happen quickly, but the slowdown didn’t last too long. Other periods of recession can take 2-3 years for the economy to recover. Businesses today will need to ensure that they have 2-3 years of runway.
Tony: Many organizations are limiting hiring right now. How can teams do more with less?
Toby: Good talent will find a role regardless of the times, and I do think that good talent will find a job anywhere – companies are still hiring, just not at the same speed. You have to focus on the people who are still in your organization. If you’ve cut 10% of your staff, you still need to make the remaining 90% productive, engaged, and ready to do their job. When the economy recovers, if people feel like they were treated poorly because they stayed, they’ll eventually leave. In the end, your targets for the year are still the same – you just have to do it in a more efficient way.
Tony: You recently posted on LinkedIn about the importance of “getting s**t done” in times of uncertainty. Will you explain what you mean by that?
Toby: I mean that it’s important to ruthlessly prioritize the things that will make the organization more efficient. Operational excellence is always a good business practice, but it becomes more critical in times of economic uncertainty. When times are good, you can throw more people at the problem and carry on. Things become incrementally harder in times of uncertainty, because organizations may not have the tools and processes to make fewer employees more productive in short periods of time. So organizations need to figure out the processes that are taking up unnecessary time and get the s**t done in order to save time and increase output for as many people as possible.
Tony: Where does enablement fit in during times of uncertainty?
Toby: People might slow down the onboarding and new hire use case of enablement. There will also be a focus to continue the personal development of individuals who stay with the company. Budgets for travel will be the first to get reduced, while productivity tools like enablement will come back into prominence as they did in a post-COVID world. When you say you need to tighten the belt and purse strings, you need to invest in tools that make people as productive as possible.
Tony: Your role is responsible for making our go-to-market (GTM) teams efficient as the company scales. How does that change for you as our economic climate evolves?
Toby: We’re still growing, and we’re still going to scale. Not all markets are created equal. Scaling has a lot of different dimensions, and we’re still growing a lot. We’re still adding people and customers every day. It gives an opportunity for people to look at process excellence and it forces an introspection that doesn’t occur when times are good. When times are good, people overlook the little things.
Tony: Can organizations come out of this better on the other side?
Toby: Organizations should look at what they can actually do. We can’t exactly control inflation. What we can control is that we execute getting our own house in as good of shape as possible. For example, amazing companies have come out of the 2008 downturn – many companies were born out of that. Companies were able to go to the next level by being able to pivot and meet unmet needs. They were resilient and many have been through several different crises. If you plan long-term, you can weather the storm.
Tony: Deloitte’s outlook says the current economy can go in four different directions over the next year or so. How do you prepare to pivot based on where things go?
Toby: You have to set yourself up to be flexible and have the ability to pivot. Where’s the playbook for dealing with the situation we have now – post-pandemic, etc? There is no playbook for that. It’s about organizations being nimble, lean, and flexible about what they’re doing externally so that they’re ready. Communication matters more than ever, and everyone in the organization needs to know what’s happening and why. It’s always a best practice, but there’s a right and wrong way to communicate. Focus on effective communication and tone from the top to the staff is important.
If you’d like to learn more about how your organization can navigate times of economic uncertainty, please visit our page, Adapting to Change.
