Job Profile: Chief New Normal Officer

COVID-19 has changed our world. Both professionally and personally millions of people are impacted. Many industries and companies are fighting for survival and existence.

Crisis also means opportunity. Like Winston Churchill once said – “never waste a good crisis”. The hardship during the crisis of 2008-09 also created opportunities to many organizations.

We’re dealing with many questions we may not have answers yet. Are we in the same sort of situation now? What skills are needed to best lead companies through the transition after the pandemic? How do we organize ourselves? How do we ensure that we take the good from the crisis and don’t fall back in bad habits we may have had before the crisis?

Good companies forge the iron when it’s hot and are getting ready. They know they need to dedicate resources to work through the transition to a new normal.

At SpenglerFox, we have analyzed what’s needed and how we can support. We have looked at the skillset of successful transformational leaders at C- and VP-level across geographies, industry sectors and types of organizations.

Dealing with COVID-19 will in principle be a large transformation for many companies to a new normal. The skillset needed will for a big part be similar. With one big difference. Nobody knows what the future will bring, nobody has all the answers, and nobody can copy paste what has been done before. Post COVID-19 will be a new normal.

There we advise our clients to dedicate resources creating the new normal, led by an officer whose title demonstrates the sense of urgency:

Chief New Normal Officer

Job Purpose

• Design and implement programs that support organizational objectives considering the changes imposed on the industry or geography by the pandemic. Identify opportunities for and drive innovations to tackle short-term and long-term impact from the crisis. Advise the management on decisions imperative to creating value for the company amid covid-19 environment.
• Plan and lead strategic and tactical organization- planning and development process with a perspective to optimize organisational performance and leadership practice in the ‘new normal’ world
• Define, coach and guide the change management approach and process for key company transformation initiatives, engaging various levels deep into the organization
• Encourage ‘new normal’ management practice, tools & processes, enable reinventing the organisation and for the transformation act as ‘the’ agent and role model for change
• Act as an integrator, facilitator and/or coach for the key company transformational & developmental activities and lead with adaptability, resilience, learning, and foresight
• Explore progressive ways of working and embracing the workforce of the future
• Sync company transformation and its cultural transformation
• As the company transforms, be the organizational clue across the group and the essential oil in the organizational machine

Experience needed:

• Business: extensive management experience, with cross-sector, cross border responsibilities;
• Transformation: proven track record executing major transformations, being the change agent for the business. Experience in driving innovative strategies across the company is desired;
• People and Relationships: facilitator, coach and advisor to senior leadership of the company;

Key Criteria

• Extensive business management experience, having had cross-sector, cross border responsibility;
• Clear record of executing major transformations, being the change agent for the business; positive ‘disruptive thinker’ and challenger, ‘escapes the current box’
• Experience in driving innovative strategies across the company is desired;
• Both visionary and operational mindset with the ability to reinvent the business, a new business and operating model, new ways of working and customer engagement
• Facilitator, coach and advisor to senior leadership of the company;
• Integrator & strong communicator, able to instill cultural transformation; be confident, resilient and comfortable with communicating at all levels and outstanding interpersonal skills
• Optimist, passionate, pragmatic and resilient leader that embraces ‘crisis as an opportunity’ and aligns the troops and capable of doing colossally challenging things in a short time
• Agile entrepreneur, able to bring simplicity to the complexity and to adapt quickly to a constantly changing environment
• A driver of agility enabling a new type of organisation designed around a more responsive and nimble workforce
• Not afraid to fix the engine while flying

Social skills and competences

• Excellent multicultural sensitivity through working experience in different countries as well as doing business worldwide.
• Excellent communication skills, honed by experience in sales, production management and negotiations with unions, works councils…..

Organisational skills and competences

• Strong in executional skills, developed through leading international multi site/multi P&L organizations under difficult circumstances
• Excellent change leadership skills, developed through the restructuring of multiple large manufacturing plants. Highly experienced in the implementation of Lean and Strategy Deployment