Transcript of Lessons from Leading in a Crisis

Okay, so it's a few minutes after 1:00 on this beautiful day in April 29th. I hope you all are doing well and managing this whole craziness in a healthy and safe and somewhat happy way. I know it's tough for a lot of people and my thoughts and prayers go out to all those folks that are helping us and those that are really suffering. So anyway, today the topic is pulled directly from a number of my clients and also a bunch of folks in my network that I've been talking to about what they're learning from leading in this challenging and difficult time. So today's topic is lessons from leading in a crisis as always, have a lot of stuff in my slides. So you'll see a lot of the slides are thick with information, so when you get the slides afterwards you'll be able to take a look at those.

Also, if you have any questions during the course of the webinar, please just use the chat feature and I'll do my best to answer your questions as best I can. So let's get started. So first of all, I'm sure a lot of you have been at, like me, have been inundated with a lot of information on LinkedIn, in the newspaper and magazines and videos and Ted talks and all sorts of stuff on how to lead during this crisis. So there's a lot of great information out there. In fact, I have links to six pieces that I thought were pretty cool on how to lead through a crisis. So with that being said, what I've done is I've tried to be as pragmatic as possible and take lessons that I'm learning from my clients primarily and also from folks in my network about what are the really key attributes that we're seeing that are really helping my clients deal with this really uncertain time in a productive way.

So there's four things that really have stood out to me so far during this crisis. The first is what we call positive accountability. I'll obviously go through each one of these in a little bit more detail and provide some examples as well. The next is foresight. Next one is having a people first approach. The fourth one is what we call decisive adaptability. It's basically two concept wrapped up into one that we combined into one kind of topic. So first the positive accountability. What we really mean by positive accountability is recognizing that people deal and adapt to difficult situations in normal times, in many different ways. People deal with stress in different ways, people deal with anxiety in different ways and it's heightened. What we've seen is it's heightened in a crisis.

I think I had a video a few weeks back, is like don't let yourself or don't let your teams revert back to bad behaviors and this is a normal thing that happens, right? So what we mean by positive accountability is that it's really important to maintain focus on being as productive as you possibly can in this very difficult time in mostly remote work environments. But do so in a way that's even more positive than you have been in the past. So it's holding people accountable, holding yourself and your teams accountable, but doing so in a forward looking positive manner. So that we're not harping on things that go wrong, we're focused much more on, good effort, don't let it happen again. Let's move forward. This is from one of my construction clients.

Construction CEO told his team last week that it was unacceptable, that what happened. He really clarified expectations for how to close out projects. They did a bad job closing out a couple of projects, which is in a construction environment, not a great thing. His comment was, hey, that was a tough week. I appreciate all your efforts on these tough circumstances. I know we're going to fix this and I know we'll have a better week this week, right? That's hard to do. It's easy to say positive accountability. It's easy. But when you're worried about collections, you're worried about payroll, you're worried about keeping your clients happy, you're worried about a whole bunch of different stuff. It's really hard to stay positive. I totally get that, but the counter to that is it particularly in tough times, like this doesn't really help to be negative.

So positive accountability is really, really important attribute. We've seen our clients really step up, even those that have a tendency to sometimes do the gotcha thing or be like, "Oh my God, how could we have done that?" Harping on these things, doing a much better job just focusing on how do we fix it and how do we move forward? So couple things to keep in mind as it relates to positive accountability one is demonstrate appreciation, right? It's really important to recognize that people deal with stuff differently. Recognize, understand the circumstances they're in. There's one situation, I know that there's a woman home, she's a VP of a trade association, working her butt off as a team of about 10 people.

Yeah, she's got two small kids at home, one with learning issues and she and her husband are trying to figure out how to juggle this stuff. So just understanding where people are, it doesn't mean that you don't have to expect them to do what the job is at hand. But it doesn't mean you have to, in these tough times, have a little bit of care and compassion, which we're seeing in speeds. Be clear on expectations specifically on the big stuff. Give good sense of direction and let people figure stuff out, right? You definitely can't micromanage in these times. Even though, again, that's easy to say when we're... One client we're working with who... They're having a tough time with collections, right?

So cashflow is big issue. So the CEO is rolling up her sleeves to work on cashflow issues and started micromanaging a little bit more than she needed to and she has taken a step back on that. So set clear expectations on the big stuff and let people figure out how to execute. Again, as we talked about in the example, take a forward looking approach, how can we fix that so it doesn't happen again rather than beating people up. Or even spending a lot of time on figuring out what went wrong necessarily more time on.

Bob just said what's around my neck. I didn't realize you guys could see me. So around my neck, because I have a thing for... It's a heating pad really. So anyway, thanks for sharing Bob. The other thing is, can you guys see my slides by the way? I'm hoping that you can. Okay. Cool. And then the last thing is don't avoid the tough conversations. For example, your team seems to be struggling a bit. Is there something we can help you guys do to get refocused? So positive accountability doesn't mean just make everyone feel good. It means really hold folks accountable, have your teams hold folks accountable. But do so in positive way as you possibly can, particularly during the tough situations that we're in right now.

Next, foresight. Foresight is a huge skill that we've seen a number of our clients display right from the start of this challenge. Foresight is just in... It's not predicting the future or not being beholden to what you think is going to happen, but really taking a look at all the information around you as best you can and getting ahead of stuff. Don't let stuff happen to you. So we've seen a couple of really good examples of this. One is, we have a construction contractor client who really got out ahead of this, was really anticipating some challenges, worried about what the governor was going to do and the mayor. The governor of Maryland, mayor of DC and the governor of Virginia and worried about what was going to happen with their construction contracts. Fortunately, for them, they're one of these essential employers. So that's been good for them. But they really got out ahead of this from a number of perspectives.

Number one, right from the start about early March I'd say around the 10th or so, they decided to go remote with as many remote peoples that their project managers, their estimators. They knew it was going to come. So they got all the kinks out, sent their folks home. They also did a lot of preparation in terms of protective gear masks and cleaning equipment and stuff like that. Did they do it perfectly? No they didn't, but they really did get out ahead of it. They weren't great at remote work. So they got a lot of the kinks out in the first week or so, which really saved them some headaches down the road. The other part is foresight that we're seeing working with a community bank.

Actually, a couple of them right now and one of them a week or so before everyone started pivoting to thinking about what it's going to look like when we transitioned back, whatever that looks like, whatever that new normal situation looks like. He really got his... He set up a getting us back to work team. He set up a team that was figuring out, had a deal with their branches which ones to open first and that kind of stuff. He set up another team that dealt with what would the new work environment look like in terms of social distancing and all that kind of stuff. So really got out ahead of those challenges. Not that his teams are going to have all the answers for sure and things going to evolve.

But he had also another team that was really more of a data gathering team in terms of the states that they're working in and were looking at all the data around what are some best practices for getting folks back to work and stuff like that. So having foresight in times like this, again, not predicting the future. But taking all the information you have at your disposal and then coming to some conclusions is really important rather than waiting for things to happen to you. It seems like simple things, but I definitely I'm seeing some folks waiting for it to happen to them as well. So what are a couple of things around foresight? Again, foresight's not predicting the future, right? It's really just about assessing the information that we have at our disposal and coming to some conclusions, right?

Never been more important in this time. Really important in terms of foresight is don't let your own bias get in the way. Don't let get your own political bias, particularly in these times, get in the way. Don't get your old way of operating, get in the way in a crisis situation. Because those things may work and they may not. Good foresight is really having the discipline to take multiple perspectives and look at and being curious about ones that are different than yours, right? So don't let your own bias come get in the way. Secondly, engage your team. Don't do this on your own as the CEO. Engage folks down, for example, at the CEO of this community of bank engaged people in the branches.

Don't assume for them, they know better than you do, right? Expect disagreement, expect debate, expect people to argue with each other. Obviously, you need to come to some conclusion, but that's what you would set up these types of teams. So that you can get the best thinking and then come to some conclusions and obviously recognizing that some of the courses of action that you take, we're going to be wrong and you're going to have to adjust. Importantly, when you do decide on some courses to action to come back to work, for example, how you're going to do that or are you going to have a staggered way of doing it? Are you going to leave some people remote and have others not. Whatever the situation might look like, communicate the rationale behind what you're doing, I think that's a really important thing to keep in mind as well.

Seeing a lot of great communication out there in the clients that we're working with. CEOs doing biweekly calls with their whole organizations or even webinars if the organizations are too big. Just so to get the information out there, keeping it in a positive way, showing appreciation, letting folks know what they're seeing and what's going to happen next. All the way down to having personal interaction and making sure that folks that maybe there's a couple of lawyers that aren't necessarily involved in the day to day. But they're doing some good work on the PPP loans or whatever it might be and just making sure that people are reaching out to them as well. You don't want people to get lost in this type of thing. So foresights a really critical skill.

Another really important skill or important characteristic that we're seeing a lot of is not just talking about putting people first, but actually putting people first. Again, this can be a cliche thing to say and frankly in normal times we have seen this be, people first and then the actions don't necessarily follow. But I really have seen a lot of actions, not words as it relates to keeping people first. That is keeping people safe, keeping people's mental health in mind, making sure that you're forcing even your leaders, your VPs to take a day off because you're working basically seven days a week now. So just kind of keeping your eye on the ball and making sure that your actions really support the words of taking care of your people.

Now sometimes that's difficult, right? So dealing with another community bank, a local one that they work their butts off to help their customers for these PPP loans, right? It's unfortunate, but they have to work crazy hours. So after the first round, I saw a lot of folks giving some people some extra time off, not keeping track every hour. That kind of stuff, but recognizing that there's a balance, right? Sometimes we're going to have to work like crazy and other times we're going to have to make sure you're paying attention to people's health and wellbeing. So the great example here, I'm working with a trade association CEO. He may be on the phone here, so whatever. If you are then that's fine. But he's not an extrovert. He's a bit introverted. He's a bit set in his ways as well. Really very good leader in his own right.

But saw one of his VPs struggling, actually that same young woman who dealing with young children at home and definitely heard in her voice. I was actually on one of the management team meetings and heard in her voice that she was struggling. So not only did after the call, he get on the phone with her and say, "Hey, what's going on? Is there anything we can do to help you? Do you need an afternoon or a day off? We can backfill for you." Not only did he do that, he sent her some flowers. Just simple things like that. In terms of keeping people first is really important. I've also encouraged members of leadership teams to make sure that they're reaching back out to their CEOs and their presidents to see how their health and wellbeing is going as well. Because it is lonely as a CEO sometimes and really important that you're making sure that your CEOs are taking time that they need as well.

So what are a couple of things to think about in terms of keeping people first? Number one, actions. Not words, right? Really important. Double down on team check-ins, right? We've seen some really great stuff around what we refer to as management rhythm or keeping the rhythm of your teams, right? One thing that we've seen I think will become a best practice out of this is something that's referred to in the Rockefeller habits called daily huddles. We've seen almost every client that we're working with and many others have daily huddles with their management teams. They could range from five minutes to 30 minutes and their check-ins, people just go around, how's it going? How are people doing? Sometimes people say, "I got enough and different than yesterday," right? So they keep them to five or 10 minutes or so. All the way to make maintaining your regular rhythm around your management team.

So if you have monthly management team meetings, keeping those up, making sure that that's cascading down to the rest of the organization as well. We've also seen some cool stuff around leaders skipping levels and going down and every once in a while checking in on a department team meeting, right? Just see how things are going from that respect, all the way to encouraging folks to have check-ins, right? There's another great organization that we're working with right now that has done something, I can't remember what they call it, I think they call it your grape awards or something. So they have a team of folks that are going around and really trying to find some positive affirmation for some folks that have gone and gone above and beyond with the customer or have really stepped in to help a teammate out that's in another department or something like that.

They bring those up to the level of the management team. So the CEO can do a shout out on their weekly or biweekly staff calls. So just things like that. I'm repeating myself using multiple channel channels. Leaders need to continue to let employees know how things are going and what's going on, what are the... How are they planning on pivoting with the fact that they do have some plans in place or some people looking at how things are going to be. We're going to transition back and just this constant sense of appreciation working with another CEO right now. Yeah. I sit in on their Monday management team meetings and at the beginning and the end of those calls he says, "Hey, thanks for all your efforts out there. I know these are tough times and please tell everyone how I appreciate what they're doing."

Just little stuff like that, even when you're frustrated is really important to keep in mind. So people first, not just words, but in your actions as well. The last one, what we call decisive adaptability. What does that mean? It just means you got to make decisions. You can't wait for all the information and you have to be able to adapt because oftentimes those decisions are going to be wrong, right? It's the stuff that great leaders do all the time, but even more important during tough times like we're going through right now. Again, back to this community bank we're dealing with up in New York, the chief lending officer had planned in place for processing the loans from during the first traunch of the PPP loans and it didn't go so well. Recognized after about a day that they were going to have to change direction and her comment was, wow, we really messed that up. Think we have it right now. Let's get on track for doing the best we can for the customers we;re dealing with.

So decisive adaptability, the ability to take action based on some information obviously. And then being able to adapt on the fly when we screw up. So what are some keys to decisive adaptability, prioritizing, right? Quickly, process information, make trade offs and determine what matters most. I guess another one that's not in here that I probably shouldn't here is delegate. Don't micro-manage everything. You can't do that as a CEO. You can't do that as a department leader, you have to help your teams prioritize and then let them go. And then fix as you need. As best as possible in these kind of fast paced, challenging times, Make it clear as best you can who gets to decide on what. It's going to be a decision at the executive team or the leadership team member makes sure everyone knows that. So there's no ambiguity around that. If not, make sure folks know they have. Yeah, that's yours, go ahead and do it and then don't beat the crap out of them after it's wrong, right?

Make decisions with conviction, right? Embrace action and don't wallow in or punish mistakes, right? Don't wallow in your mistakes and punish folks. Now's not the time for that. There's going to be lots of lessons learned from how you operated in this crisis and there will be some great lessons to learn that you'll take forward with you after the transition. Actually, probably during the transition. I guess the last point in decisive adaptability is don't ever get comfortable. Get ahead of the changing circumstances and be ready to adjust course quickly and without remorse, right?

So these are things that we're seeing from our clients. It goes back to, I'll just repeat real quick, positive accountability, hold people accountable, but make sure you do it in as positive way as possible. Foresight not talking about predicting the future, but taking in the best amount of information as you can. Thinking through potential challenges, coming up with potential scenarios to solve them, agreeing on a course of action and communicating rationale, right? Engaging people and not letting your own bias get in the way. Making people feel they're first by your actions, not just by accolades or saying the words.

And then be decisive and be equally quick with pivoting and adjusting. So that's all I got for now. If anyone's got any questions, I think I got one question here. I hope I do anyway. Okay. Thank you for that Dan. I'm glad you enjoyed it and I hope to see on the next one, stay safe out there. Anyone else have any questions or comments? Again, I'll get this information out to folks as I usually do probably in the next day, give you the links. Just wanted to let you know that my quiz is on the front page of my website, so please take a look at that. If you want to take a quiz and see how your team's stacking up, particularly in today's environment. And then our next webinar will be preparing your leadership team for the transition to a new normal on May 27th. That's actually the day I graduated from college. So it should be a good one. Anyway, I appreciate you guys showing up in such good numbers today and I look forward to talking to you again.