The 2022 Leader

When the COVID-19 pandemic first happened, everyone was in a new place of figuring life out. Leaders had to shift quickly to provide a higher level of providing digital or convenient experiences. The new mantra in business was fast, easier, seamless and convenient.   

Consumers were initially forgiving of companies struggling with pandemic related disruptions but people are no longer as tolerant as we move forward.  Just think about you and your own family. You can now get instant access to entertainment, refill prescriptions online and get same day groceries with Amazon Fresh. The era of digital transformation has come and gone. It is now passe and expected.

This expectation will impact both careers and business survivorship. The 2022 focus will be human centered technology initiatives. All this rapid response technology, innovation and mass adoption has replaced and will continue to replace a lot of human workers. Essentially dehumanizing the customer experience and making us all crazy mad and irritated along the way. It is already starting to happen with automated phone voice systems, chat message bots, self-serve checkouts, and the inability to reach a well-trained human being who cares and who is actually empowered to solve your problem.

If you want to be at an advantage in this brave new world ahead, then you need to learn to lead the way and deliver what the automated robots and systems cannot. You need to lead in delivering the essential value of the human touch, the human heart layered on top of these new high tech solutions. 

Let’s look at the future consumer. Consumers rapidly increased their technology adoption and their usage demands and expectations for immediacy and instant gratification will only accelerate in the year ahead. Consumers have much higher expectations that not only will digital experiences work well but they will expect them to be seamless across communication channels. They want a consistent experience across every touchpoint and they expect relevancy, personalization and speed. Speed is the new currency in business. Consumers are now surrounded by speed. The world's information is at our fingertips in nanoseconds. You can bark at Alexa or Siri for anything that you want. You can order any size car you want, with a few clicks of your phone and it will magically pull up in front of you in under three minutes. You've got to be ready to meet these new expectations this new year. 

If you haven’t started thinking about how you can provide your same service faster, easier, seamlessly and conveniently in 2022, start there. 

Leadership will look like it has never before looked as we enter a new year.

Best, 

Manal