Scaling Up coaches on COVID, remote work, and business adaptation

Executive overview

The pandemic exposed a sharp divide: businesses that adapted survived; those that didn't, failed. Remote work created efficiencies but stripped connection — and the right blend going forward is still being worked out.

Coaches across the US and UK share what they observed in 2020–21: workforce disruptions, the shift to Zoom-based facilitation, and clients pivoting their go-to-market. The recurring theme is that adaptability is a permanent muscle, not a crisis response.

The companies that thrived chose to adapt — those that didn't, often chose not to.

COVID's uneven impact on people and businesses

• Women bore a disproportionate share of job losses in late 2020, driven by childcare demands
• Lower socioeconomic groups were hit hardest; disadvantaged children lost significant ground during remote schooling
• "Learned helplessness" spread as repeated lockdowns eroded resilience at a national level
• Regional variation was extreme — Florida felt almost normal; Manhattan faced prolonged restrictions
• Leaders must meet each employee, customer, and supplier where they are; empathy is non-negotiable
• Pent-up emotional exhaustion is still present — anger, grief, and relief exist simultaneously within the same team

Remote work: efficiency vs. connection

• Zoom sessions get through planning work faster, but miss the qualitative depth of in-person conversation
• Breakout rooms on Zoom can outperform in-person small groups — introverts contribute more, parallel work accelerates output
• Mural (collaborative whiteboard) used alongside Zoom enables both remote and hybrid facilitation effectively
• The person not in the room is always disadvantaged in a hybrid meeting — a known risk in partly remote models
• Coaches report energy recovery from face-to-face work is roughly 5x higher than from Zoom
• Hiring geography is now unconstrained — and mid-country hires often mean lower cost of living and salary expectations

Adaptation as a permanent capability

• Restaurants in the same strip mall had opposite outcomes based solely on willingness to adapt
• Some businesses used the pandemic to discover more profitable models (e.g., cookery school replacing a restaurant)
• New product development needs to be an explicit function — most founders pivot by repackaging existing skills, not creating new products
• Companies with no distribution through closed channels (e.g., toy makers, food producers) had to go direct-to-consumer fast
• Jack Stack's view: every black swan event is an opportunity — prepare for the next one
• Choosing not to adapt is a valid choice, but it must be owned consciously, not framed as "can't be done"

Focus, niche, and ideal customers

• Lack of focus persists from early-stage startups through to multi-billion-dollar companies
• Being "an inch wide and a mile deep" is consistently what differentiates the clients that win
• The hardest recruiting challenge now: clients have solved go-to-market for customers but have no strategy for attracting employees
• Build an avatar for your ideal employee the same way you build one for your ideal customer
• Identify who already loves you and refers freely — chemistry and fit predict better outcomes than cold outreach

Coaching evolution and what changed

• Early 2020: crisis coaching and contingency planning; then adapting operations; then pivots; now navigating the return
• Coaching shifted almost entirely to Zoom; virtual sessions are more time-efficient but less energising
• Some clients are returning to in-person for the first time after hiring half a leadership team remotely — the emotional impact of meeting in person is significant
• Post-pandemic, a hybrid model is emerging: two in-person quarterlies, two virtual; annual strategy in person
• Coaches who resisted webinars pre-pandemic now reach 40,000 people virtually vs. 2,500 in person before

BHAGs and ambition post-pandemic

• Ariana Huffington: "Fearlessness is like a muscle — the more I exercise it, the more natural it becomes"
• If your dreams don't scare you, they're not big enough — the BHAG should feel frightening and inspiring simultaneously
• One UK academy trust set a BHAG of being "world famous for innovation in education" — job applications went from 30 to 300 overnight
• The moment a BHAG is written down and committed to, behaviour changes before the goal is reached