Why would nonprofits & forward-thinking companies and organizations dare go back to business as usual?

From that crucial moment on a January night in 1610 when Galileo looked through his telescope lens into the heavens to discover that the long-held beliefs that the earth was the center of the universe was flawed, and evidence to the contrary could no longer support such belief, the ‘New Possible’ began in earnest.
What Galileo observed in the heavens above rocked the very foundations of Aristotle’s universe and centuries of thought and long-held sets of beliefs. Have we similarly been constrained by our limiting set of beliefs and practices and operations within our organizations?

What lenses are we looking through? How are we seeing our world around us and what beliefs are holding us back from new discovery and our ‘New Possible?’
While there is much discussion about a ‘New Normal’ in a rapidly changing world, we now must begin to shift to imagining our ‘New Possible’ within our own organizations. Whether you are in a nonprofit fighting for social change and helping to transform lives and our world, a museum, or you are part of a company or small business providing necessary and desired products and services to the marketplace, we must examine what limitations are holding us back from re-thinking and re-imagining our world and how we deliver products and services to consumers and those we serve.

Specifically, what new systems, operations, and old thinking around our people and teams, culture, processes, programs and offerings should we radically re-evaluate within our organizations? From creating new online delivery models with zero contact to creating new forms of virtual and online offerings in a post-COVID-19 world, the time is now to step into virtual learning and sharing mindset as virtual is here to stay!

How is what we do governed by our limiting beliefs? Are old ways and mindsets of former practices going to prepare us for our new world and tomorrow’s new economy or social needs? How can we be more forward-thinking in our approach to systems and people and culture and even our physical workplace? How do we shift our thoughts to be open to innovations, adaptive capacity, and flex-strategy?

Working from home (WFH) may be our new normal for many, but we must think even beyond. Perhaps it’s even work from anywhere (WFA) and adapting to such a world with few parameters in how and where we meet our customers, donors, or supporters. There truly are NO LIMITS to our thinking as we make these shifts toward flex-strategy and adaptive learning.

Such an existential crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed us to new surroundings, new environments, and back to our homes and into nature as we are getting outside and out-of-doors now more than ever. Maybe this is what it took for us to ‘awaken’ to possibilities to re-design and reshape our future direction, business and workplace culture, to an engaged digital world on Zoom and Skype calls to connect humanity and customers and supporters.

This crisis is allowing us to simply think about looking into our own heavens with a new lens and asking what is being observed. Are we are listening to our new universe before us as did Galileo and challenging upheld beliefs and practices? The world and organizations need this new mindset shift now more than ever. In many ways, the old-world order was not serving us or helping humanity achieve at higher levels anyway.

What can this moment teach us? In short, LOTS! It can help us take down some burdensome customary rituals, rigidity in processes, and make us much more adaptive and flexible creatures as our ancestors had to be in order to survive, adapt, and eventually thrive.

Whether it’s dispensing with red-tape, bureaucracy, stymied discussions around process flow, how we message to stakeholders, work with our boards, or impede progress due to poor company cultural, beliefs or practices on how we process customer engagement, we are now on a steep learning curve. Let’s continue to be on that learning curve and never stop opening our minds and eyes with a high dose of compassion and understanding along the way – as humanity is depending on this now more than ever.

From this day forward, may we commit to new reforms, innovations, being open to new ideas, new approaches, communications, and product innovations. We must shift to having new mindsets and creating and fostering new supportive and diverse cultures with diverse ideas within that thrive when challenged and elevate toward more conscious companies and organizations that are forward-thinking in the work and institutions.

Keep marching forward. Keep adapting, learning, and growing and imagining the impossible as the possible – humanity is depending on it! May you have NO LIMITS in your mindsets to achieve a 21st century forward-thinking organization positioned to improve our world! May you become your own Galileo staring at the heavens above and all around you and use your new lens to see the unimaginable become your new ‘New Possible!’