When I first laid eyes on a gray pair of Allbirds sneaks, my first thought was that they look a bit like Yeezy's, and they're probably really expensive.
Turns out they're even more more luxe than Yeezy's: rather than synthetic materials, Allbirds are crafted from ultra-fine merino wool that's made in the same Italian mill as the wool used in Tom Ford's suits.
It also turns out they're not nearly as expensive as I expected: $90, a small price to pay for the feeling of walking on clouds and a clean, chic look. They're also made in fun orange, green and blue hues.
Like Yeezy's, Allbirds' provenance is attached to a (slightly less flashy) celebrity: New Zealander Tim Brown, a former star footballer. After retiring from sports, he attended business school. Hailing from the land of nearly 30 million sheep, his history as an athlete, plus studying business proved a natural path to founding Allbirds.
Brown teamed up with Joey Zwillinger, a San Francisco-based engineer and renewables expert, to bring a comfortable, sustainable product to market. Even their box uses less material than regular shoe boxes and incorporates a patent-pending design that encloses each shoe.
A wool shoe might sound like it would heat up your foot, but the wool breathes nicely and supports the foot but also stretches with it. And if you wind up not liking them, you can return them for a full refund.
But if my test drive is any indication, that won't be necessary. I recently signed up my daughter with a co-op preschool, where I have to work a shift once every week, and was surprised to find that I wasn't simply observing the children and having a laugh with the other moms. I was on my feet for three hours straight, sweeping floors, assisting with art projects, pushing swings. I was exhausted, but the Allbirds got my feet through it without pain.
The best part, especially after those art projects, is you can throw them right in the washing machine.
Whereas organizations used to describe agile change as “fixing the plane while it flies,” the COVID-19 pandemic has rewritten the rules of upheaval in modern times. Those leading any organization are not fixing the plane in midair, we’re building it. Times like these need leaders who are resilient in the face of such dramatic uncertainties.
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The first article in this series described the essential foundations leaders need in order to effectively navigate through the crisis. Resilient leaders are defined first by five essential qualities of who they are, and then by what they do across three critical time frames: Respond, Recover, and Thrive.
As we progress into the Recover phase of the crisis, resilient leaders recognize and reinforce critical shifts from a “today” to a “tomorrow” mindset for their teams. They perceive how major COVID-19-related market and societal shifts have caused substantial uncertainties that need to be navigated—and seized as an opportunity to grow and change. Amid these uncertainties, resilient leadership requires even greater followership, which must be nurtured and catalyzed by building greater trust. And resilient leaders start by anticipating what success looks like at the end of recovery—how their business will thrive in the long term—and then guide their teams to develop an outcomes-based set of agile sprints to get there.