Where some see doom and gloom, great leaders take the reins and make *&(%*# happen.
Here we are deep in a crisis like we have never seen before.
By Jay Richards for Industry Week
Before March, we were literally looking at an unemployment rate we hadn’t seen in decades. Life was good! Hell! Life was great! Suddenly, it all came to a screeching halt. Jobless claims shot up. Productivity ground to a halt. Our city streets began to close up and started to look more like something out of an eerie apocalyptic movie. To quote my late grandmother, “We were going to hell in a handbasket!” But, where some see doom and gloom and just go with the flow letting life happen to them, great leaders take the reins and make shit happen. Here are five key areas to help organizations navigate through significant disruptions.
These areas are based on research conducted by Denison Consulting in Ann Arbor, Michigan, which provides culture and leadership assessments and solutions.
Denison finds to successfully navigate a crisis; the organization must possess the following five strengths:
1. Communication
There is a lot of misinformation out there that has people worried. This creates fear. The fear is caused by uncertainty. No one can get a straight answer on where we will all end up. So, don’t be the organization that fuels the uncertainty. Be the organization that communicates through the crisis. I am sure you now have plenty of new policies and priorities in place. Make sure you communicate that to your people.
A CEO I am working with through the crisis gives regular updates to all employees every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. This includes information about the state of the company, new policies/procedures, as well as safety updates from the CDC guidelines. During this time of uncertainty, as a leader, you have to understand that the fear is driven by each person’s livelihood. Many probably worry whether they will have a job when all of this is over. That becomes a slippery slope of, “How will I pay my bills or feed my family?” Don’t even get me started on “What if I catch the virus and then bring it back to my family?” Communicate, Communicate, Communicate.
So how do you get the information out there? Being a manufacturer, you probably have a mix of people on site and working at home. For those working from home, utilize programs such as Zoom to hold virtual meetings and town halls. For onsite, distribute information through common apps such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Whatever the vehicle, the key is to keep people up-to-date each step of the way.