Shrink, Hide or Grow

In these times, when speaking with Life Science Executives, I see three approaches that leaders are taking shrink, to hide, or to grow. Companies who are currently shrinking reduced their staff back around the April 2020 timeframe in the US. They may have also had a second cut as we got further into the year. These companies are hoping to weather the storm by keeping all costs low and just riding out the storm.

The second group of individuals put most things on pause and are trying to ride a sort of small growth with a small cuts curve to ensure that they can manage through COVID-19. The final group and the one that we should all be excited about is the group that is envisioning the future and has started to take a look at where we will be as vaccines arrive and as things open up again.

The toughest thing for most leaders is to project when recovery will happen. And what will recovery look like? For some leaders though, their mind has already let them leap into the future and start planning for a window when recovery will be available and what people will need. Today, if we were to look at companies that are shrinking, hiding or growing they might not look that different from the outside. On the inside of a growth company, we would see R&D investing in the future or Marketing planning for what comes next. We know that there will be life after this pandemic is over.

Hopefully, this time is one that your organization has chosen to grow into. Where is your organization?