When I talk to colleagues, business partners, clients and friends, we inevitably end up talking about the lack of resources. All kinds of resources. Whether it’s severe labor shortages, supply chain delays, financial market instability or unprecedented price and cost increases, every day brings its own set of challenges.
Posted at 11:00 a.m.
Contrary to popular belief, we are far from a “return to normal”. We have to stop thinking that life is back to normal; it’s rather the hustle and bustle at the moment! These last three years will have marked the time: there is the before, and now, we must define the after.
What if we took the opportunity to do better? To approach the innumerable challenges as a springboard to renewal?
Do better by rethinking the organization of work
For the first time in history, five generations are in the labor market — from baby boomers to the alpha generation. This is an extraordinary opportunity to rethink the organization of work in order to maximize this wealth of ideas, interests and motivations. Knowing that young people want to take advantage of technologies at work, let us increase their use; and knowing that experienced people find meaning in giving back and sharing their knowledge, we encourage retirees to coach or to mentor.
We would also benefit from welcoming workers with a different cognitive profile. While companies have made significant strides in diversity, equity and inclusion, we still have a long way to go when it comes to neurodiversity. There is a pool of workers there that we are depriving ourselves of, despite their skills.
Simply do better by collaborating
Business leaders also need to team up. Engage in fair and honest competition, in order to enter into an implicit agreement to work for the real common good.
Earnings — the bottom line — can no longer be the sole aim of our organisations; it is no longer sustainable. Let’s have great common ambitions and aim for a more encompassing, more structuring valuation. Many of our colleagues, our own teams, our clients, as well as our partners and shareholders, already advocate such an approach. It is high time we come together to take action.
Do better by assuming our leadership
In Quebec, we have everything we need to think big and do things differently. We are fortunate to count on exceptional talents such as Mila’s 900 innovation researchers. We will also have the privilege of being at the forefront of advances in ESG, as Montreal will host the ISSB, the new international standard-setting organization for sustainable finance. And that’s without taking into account our many business networks that ensure, day after day, to support economic development and propel businesses here. We have much to be proud of. As Quebecers, let us assume this leadership that we already exercise, here as elsewhere.
Do better by remaining lucid
Of all the major global disruptions, the net zero transition is likely to bring its greatest share of dichotomies. The time has come for fundamental choices, for major decisions, while the current context is more solid AND fragile than ever; that we face a host of risks AND opportunities; and that we must be prudent AND daring, rigorous AND agile; that we need to generate short-term AND long-term results; that we must create value for our organizations AND for our societies.
Faced with the magnitude of the task, we are obliged to do better. No more, no less, better. This is how we will change things.
Let’s be bold and adjust our ways of doing things so that benevolence rhymes with performance. Let us work together for the common cause, articulate a vision and formulate great ambitions for our organizations, for our people and for our society.
In this sense, aren’t the upheavals we are going through a tremendous opportunity to be seized? The time has come to #DoBetter, together.
Letter inspired by the speech delivered at the Cercle canadien, October 17, 2022