No doubt, the Covid-19 pandemic has impacted each and every one of us in one way or another. We are faced with a new reality, including a changed economic and business landscape. The road ahead, in the coming weeks and months, will be very bumpy as we embrace the unprecedented challenges in our professional and even personal lives.

Whilst it is easy to remain in “fire-fighting” mode, the focus of our leadership should be firmly on how we can RECOVER our business and pave the way for us to REINVENT ourselves. This is a critical moment for us. We have to seize the opportunities right now or we will be swept away by the changes that have been accelerated by this crisis.

In this regard, we at Perspective Strategies have not rested on our laurels during this difficult period. While we continue to engage our team and clients, we are also stepping up our game. We have two new big initiatives – one in consulting and another in training and coaching. We hope, we will be given the opportunity to engage with you on these areas in the coming weeks.

In the area of our consulting work, we are establishing a special practice focused on Recovery and Reinvention. This multi-discipline practice will marry our strength in communication with specific technical expertise in areas we strongly believe are essential in future-proofing our organisation and thus helping us in the recovery and reinvention of our business.

We are pleased to highlight that Associate Professor Dr. Chang Li-Yen from the Department of Medical Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya will join our Recovery and Reinvention Practice as Consultant and Expert Advisor on Health and Safety. She will be providing expert input and consultancy to organisations seeking to prepare their organisations for biosafety and biosecurity issues, which have now impacted almost every single sector or business, including identifying and addressing gaps to strengthen health and safety strategies.

Li-Yen has extensive knowledge and experience working with highly virulent pathogen in high biocontainment facilities. Over the years, Li-Yen has won numerous awards and recognition for her scientific work including the prestigious Merdeka Award. She was in the Nipah Virus Encephalitis Investigation Team, which won the inaugural Merdeka Award back in 2008.

In the area of Training and Coaching, we are pleased to unveil to you our newest venture, the Communications Leadership Academy. I am pleased to introduce to you, Cheah Kar Fei, who will be heading this Academy as its Managing Partner. Kar Fei is the Founder and Performance Coach of Life Redesigned, a coaching team that aims to develop young people in the global workforce. With his vast experience in coaching and public speaking, Kar Fei is also an official member of the Forbes Coaches Council and a TEDx speaker. He has coached clients and spoken at conferences in more than 15 countries around the world.

Kar Fei and our new team at the Communications Leadership Academy will focus on efforts to train and coach corporate executives including communication professionals to embrace the new reality – a new marketplace that demands a more agile workforce, a work culture that promotes empowerment as well as teams that are familiar to work remotely and deploy the various digital tools in the market. We will be building a team of coaches and facilitators, who are experts in areas such as biosecurity, organisational development, digital transformation, finance and human psychology.

For both consulting and training and coaching practices, our focus to help businesses recover and reinvent will cover four core areas:

In the coming weeks, we will be launching a thought leadership series (including articles, infographics, workshops and webinars) to help businesses RECOVER and REINVENT themselves. Our topics will showcase the diversity of subjects which we think will be key to put us on the right path to rebuild, reimagine and reform our business structure and processes as well as the people within our organisations.

Indeed, crisis moments like this is the true test of our organisation’s resilience or our brand’s leadership. In fact, this is the time for us to build trust and engage in meaningful relationships with our stakeholders. This calls for us to showcase our leadership and to step up our communication to stakeholders, including employees, customers, investors, regulators and business partners. After all, communication by the leadership is even more important in times of crisis in order to engage stakeholders meaningfully.

However, no matter how bad the situation is, like all storms it will pass. Yes, this storm is like no other storm we’ve ever faced before. It may feel like a tsunami right now. However, the sun will shine again and that will be our Moment of Truth. There is no better time than right now, for us to start our business recovery and reinvention initiatives.

My team and I will be updating you about these initiatives from time to time but do feel free write to me personally at andy.see@perspective.com.my if you are interested to know more about our big, new ideas.

Thank you.

Carpe Diem!

Andy See Teong Leng
Principal Partner and Managing Director
Perspective Strategies

This article was first published in the fifth issue of the Perspective Strategies newsletter.