Lessons on Innovation and Crisis Management
In light of Deloitte’s recently released COVID19 Stimulus and Support Finder, we sat down with Pete Williams, Chief Edge Officer for Deloitte’s Centre for the Edge and Luke Fuller, Senior Manager from the Strategy and Transformation Office, to share some of their insights on crisis management, innovation and serving our clients with integrity.
The following is an excerpt from Deloitte’s internal innovation podcast Candid Conversations, a series which focuses on trending topics and innovation in practice.
Innovation in Crisis
Innovation during crisis is often urgent and imperfect - at least at first. In their podcast, Pete and Luke share their insights on how to innovate “on the fly” and the importance of constant iteration:
- Set impossible goals and beat them.
- Great ideas come to life by managing the politics.Getting the right buy-in early accelerates the pace of innovation.
- Fuel teams to move fast by eroding barriers with a common purpose.
- Build a truly collaborative team, with members who have unique skillsets.
- Don’t be scared to make contact with leaders for feedback.
- Aim, fire, adjust. Get a project off the ground and use the learnings to make it better.
- Outthink, outexecute, but don’t outspend.
Helping Others through Social Innovation
In a global pandemic, everyone is under pressure to deliver and make things happen quickly. It can be easy to focus on the problems in front of us and forget to prioritise empathy.
“In times of crisis it’s more important than ever to demonstrate empathy for and understanding of others…. Whilst it’s easy to move fast and break things, it’s much harder to move fast and fix things.” – Luke Fuller
Deloitte’s value statement is “Making an Impact that Matters.” When we help our fellow businesses through the development of tools such as the Stimulus and Support Finder, we live out our virtues in a practical way. This offers the additional benefit of learning how to better serve people.
“We learn things from social innovation that we bring back to clients through our work.”– Pete Williams
Although innovation was an enabler of the COVID-19 Stimulus and Support Finder, it is also part of our DNA as a company. Whilst the development of the tool is something special, it is also business usual for us, as innovation truly sits at the heart of what we do.
“Fundamentally, we are just doing what we’ve always done: responding to the changing needs of our clients.”– Luke Fuller
COVID-19 and Businesses
Due to the pandemic, businesses are faced with challenges they’ve never had to deal with before. The Australian Government has a wealth of support available; however, with specific eligibility requirements, businesses need support to understand the stimulus available to them. This is the purpose of the Stimulus and Support Finder – helping the Australian business community emerge from this crisis with confidence.
“The firm has really put their innovation boots on and is focusing on why we can achieve things rather than why we can’t.” - Pete Williams
