Leading During Turbulent Times
The world is experiencing a pandemic, yet we still need to lead our companies. Traci and Rob discuss the 4 key steps a leader needs to take now in order to weather the current storm hitting our world. We will talk through how to best lead and care for your team while facing the harsh realities of keeping your business alive. It’s possible to balance the two!
Transcript
Traci:
Hi Rob, how are you doing?
Rob:
Hey Traci. Not too bad. How are you?
Traci:
Good. Good. We should let everybody know that this episode, we are recording on March 25th, 2020. We are in the middle of COVID-19 worldwide pandemic, and we were just chatting before we started recording how surreal it is. We want to talk about leading during times of crisis or during tumultuous times. And a lot of what we will talk about today is evergreen. I mean, these are things we want leaders to know and to remember not just today as we're dealing with a crisis. Every company, it has to weather this storm regardless of what type of business you're in. But we want to talk about this in the context of there are always tough times and in the business world, this is an extremely hard one. But how do we as leaders stay human, stay focused, stay connected when we're going through a tumultuous crisis in our business?
Announcer:
Welcome to the Overly Human podcast where we discuss all things human in the workplace. Because it's not just business, it's personal too.
Traci:
So you've been around for a while. Would you say that this has been one of the hardest times you've gone through at Sparkbox? Or can you recall a feeling similar in the past?
Rob:
I mean, we've definitely...starting a business and growing it, there's been tough times and it's a little interesting just because this time it feels slightly different. Somebody was asking me the other day like, "Oh, I'm sure this is the hardest time you've ever had in the business." And I actually was able to say to them, “Well, no. That's not actually true. There's been times in the past where decisions we made, and failure I knew would directly impact my family and their ability to have food and what they need." Because we've been doing this long enough right now, I actually am able to make decisions that I know my family's going to have a place to live next month and have food on the table. We've got a little bit more security personally than we did when we started, that allows a different kind of decision to be made and how I feel about those things.
Traci:
Yeah. Yeah. Which is good. It's interesting because I've done a lot of reflecting as I've had clients call me and then coaching through this and trying to write and think about times in my past as a leader. Obviously September 11th comes to mind, the great recession comes to mind, and this as well. I feel like I've had a unique seat through all of those crisis because I've always had clients just as you have. I've not only been able to see how my own company weathers these storms, but I have been able to observe how my clients have weathered these storms, and some have weathered them much better than others. Try to think about what are the common themes or threads with the leaders and the companies who tend to weather the storms a bit better than other clients have or other companies have? I think that's an interesting thing to think about and ponder.
Rob:
Yeah, it is.
Traci:
How do leaders, how some of the best leaders lead and run their companies through turbulent times?
Rob:
Yeah, that's good. That's going to be a good list to talk through. I think the one thing that I think I want to say on the onset to this is I know we want to have some principles for all times, but I think right now one of the things that I've heard from talking to a lot of my peers is there's a lot of guilt about what's going on and not being prepared for the current events. And I want to just give everybody the permission to not feel guilty. This isn't something that has happened before in my lifetime or your lifetime or in most of our lifetimes, and this isn't something that...Decision we've made, this is us responding to outside events. I don't think that that guilt is helping right now, and I don't think it's actually warranted when it's the entire economy that's having this impact right now.
Traci:
Yeah. I think that's such a great point to start on because our emotions are really the things that we have to have a check on. We have to sit with ourselves and really analyze what we're feeling and then place it against truth. So guilt is a big thing that people are feeling and fear, and those are two emotions that can wreak havoc on our ability to be a good leader, to be a good parent, to be a good spouse, to be a good friend. Those are...they trip us up over and over and over again. So I think those two emotions are things that we have to put our finger on the pulse, know when we're feeling them and know how to put them in their proper place so we can think clearly. I think this is the Overlay Human podcast, and so probably the first thing, this bucket that the emotions fall into, the first thing we need to be thinking about as leaders, which is to just be human and to actually be overly human. Overly human to ourselves and to others that we're working with.
I think to your point with the guilt is that's part of being human to ourselves is to give ourselves a little grace to understand that with the real situation is there's a lot that we can't control, there's a lot that we can learn from it. But we need to remember that getting through this is going to take a lot of empathy and a lot of resilience.
Rob:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's going to take a ton of empathy and that guilt is something that can be crippling. And with that comes shame, and I think that as fluid situations develop and we're learning things every day, sometimes hour by hour, that we can become crippled by that. And that time is valuable to just communicate the right things and to be in a good place to lead out of this.
Traci:
Yeah. I think too, our sense of imposter syndrome can get super heightened during these times of stress and anxiety, like, "Do I even know how to lead? Is it okay to say I don't have all the answers? Can I say I'm scared too? Can I say I'm vulnerable...be vulnerable? Can I say things out loud that are going on in my head?"
And I think that our teams need to see us actually being human, actually feeling these things, actually saying like, "I don't know the answer to that right now. We're all going to have to put our heads together here because this is my first time going through this situation, this crisis." And to be able to really show your team not that you are crumbling or that you are falling apart, but that you too are maneuvering and navigating this situation the best that you can, and that it's okay not to have all the answers.
Rob:
Yeah. I think that's ... I mean, that is so true for so many times when we talk about how to communicate things and do all those things, and it's so tempting for so many of us to just want to have the answer, to be the answer provider. I think it's much more, and especially in a time like this, advantageous for it to be like is, "Hey, I'm a little scared too." or, "I don't know exactly what's going on." That honesty is what's connecting. Because at least then when you do provide answers and directions, they don't have to suss out what's an act and what's not.
Traci:
Yeah, absolutely. They need to see authenticity from you, and you need to be processing out loud with them. They need to see your train of thought, they need to know that you're thinking about them and the business at the same time. That you can hold those two things together, you can keep the business going and care for them at the same time. And for a lot of people, the team they're on is a bit of their safe space right now. And when we're going through hard times, it's amazing how a team at work, if we have good culture and we have good relationships, can be a safe place for us, a safe haven for us.
And one of the things I think that's so interesting about going through a tough time, is we start to really see the benefits of the work that we put in any years prior, the work of building our team culture, the work of growth and development, the work of coaching or one-on-ones or reviews that we've had in the past, we're starting to see the fruit from that when we go through a tough time. We see the team pulled together, we see the team be kind to each other, we see them really rise to the occasion with processes and client interaction.
And so it's just a great reminder that when times are really good, we can't take our eye off the ball. We have to keep building that culture and keep building those teams because inevitably, that's just life, we're going to hit tough times. So for the teams that have put in the work, in some ways, they might have a bit of an easier time through this because their culture is going to hold them together.
Rob:
Yeah. They've put in the work and I think that goes back to some of the things we've said before about transparency and how important it is. Transparency isn't just during bad times or just during good times, it's about the consistency involved with it. Because people can feel, when they feel...they know when they feel informed, they know that there is an opportunity to continue to be updated and if information is shared freely during good times and bad times, then they're used to hearing it and they understand the cadence of it.
Traci:
Yeah. I think that is probably the next big bucket that we have to look at as a leader is our communication. Being visible and communicating as a leader through a crisis or through a tough time for the company is essential. Some leaders have the tendency to go crawl into a cave, or to hermit, or to communicate lasts because they feel like, "I've got to get my head down. I've got to be working on this. I've got to solve the problem." And they go inward instead of outward. And yes, there are things we do have to put pen to paper, we do have to do some modeling, we do have to look at things, but we have to be so conscious of our level of communication. And leaders need to be visible, we need to be sending updates even when there's not anything to update about. We need to be communicating with our teams and having our one-on-one conversations, and still having our meetings, and still having our town halls, and listening to people. It's really important for leaders not to disappear during this time.
Rob:
Yeah. I think that's absolutely right, this is the time to be more visible and to be more in touch with people, and just check in on people. I know over the last couple of weeks I've just checked in on different people in our team and actually just people in the industry, that like, "Hey, how are you? How can I support you? Do you just need someone to talk to?" And some people are like, "No, I'm good." Even on my own team. And other people are like, "No, I could really use an ear right now."
Traci:
And clients need to hear that too. Clients need that authentic touch from you, they need to know that you're not reaching out because you want them to pay their bill right away or that you're reaching out to sell them something else because times are tough. You need to just reach out and say, "How are you doing? I just want to make sure you're okay. Is everybody healthy? Is there anything we can do to support you better? If you need an ear, I'm here to chat." I mean, those are the touch points, the communication that really matters. And I think it's important for us to be doing that with our teammates and our coworkers and to be doing that with our clients as well.
I also think what's interesting...I was talking to a coaching client the other day, of finding that balance between communicating and being clear on your expectations, but not micromanaging. For some people, especially during this time, especially if you're not used to working in a remote environment and you've been pushed into a robot remote environment, all of a sudden, all that trust is being tested.
"Do I trust that you're working on this? I can't see you anymore." So again, it goes back to how much work have you done on building that cohesive team? But remembering that there are some things that you can't control what everybody is doing in their house 9:00-5:00 every single day, you got to let it go. You've got to just set clear expectations and let it go, you can't turn into this crazy micromanager. Our communication is that we're updating, we're unifying, we're making sure everybody knows what the expectations are and what's going on. Our communication is not to micromanage.
Rob:
No, I completely agree with that. I think it's a huge part of my job that I've taken on the last couple of weeks is making sure there's clear focus and that people know what the important things are and where our attention should be. And realizing that for some team members that there's a lot of places to get a lot of news during bad times, especially right now. And how can we provide for them a safe place where they can focus on their work if that's what they're looking for, and making sure that they know what the important things are that are inside our control.
It's so interesting, because in this particular case where everybody's working from home and their kids are at home too, the distraction levels going through the roof. How do we make sure we communicate what priorities are? But I also think it's every bit as important to make sure everybody's really clear where, "Hey, if you need some additional flexibility, this is where you can pull it from. These things aren't as important, and we can flex these. These are the things we can't flex."
So what I think that we have to be careful of as business owners and leaders is if everybody makes those decisions for themselves, then it can be chaos. But if we can set those strategies and directions and say, "Hey, what we really need to focus those on these kinds of priorities and this is the big wins." Then at least we're all marching towards that and people know where to pull from when they need that additional flexibility.
Traci:
I mean, that is such a great, great point. And one of my favorite things, quotes, to say is that, “Clarity is kind, ambiguity is unkind.” And as humans, we need psychological safety. It's just a human basic need is to feel...have that safety and that psychological safety. And one of the best ways for us to provide that as leaders is through clarity.
And so just what you're saying about how in the world we can get all this wrong information and these bad sources of news, the same thing happens in the work environment. It's typically the water cooler. The water cooler is a great place for a lot of bad information to be spread. Like, "I think this is happening." Or, "Did you hear that?" And so we need to combat that through clarity and communication as leaders where we can write all that bad information internally, and that really helps the team to feel safe and secure.
I love your point about like, "These are the places to flex and these are the places not to flex." I think that's such a great gift to give to your team and it gives them freedom to operate within those boundaries and they're clear and knowing what you need and want from them. And that helps them feel safe and secure and highly productive.
Rob:
Yeah. And part of the solution, right?
Traci:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah.
Rob:
We're all looking for things during these times of...Things that are in our control and that we can actually impact so that we have the best chance to continue to operate as normally as we can. I think that's a huge part of all this for people is, I keep getting questions, "What can I do? What can I do? What can I do?" or "How do we control all these things?" And my continued answer is, "Well, here's the things in the scope of our control that we actually have impact over. And then there's a whole bunch of other things that we can't."
For us, we do client work and we've had some client projects go on pause, we've had other ones continue. And people want to know what the best thing they can do is, and my response continues to be is, "The best thing we can do is continue to deliver for our clients, and make sure that they know that we are continuing to work and doing our best work." Because they also have outside influences and things outside of their control that are happening to their businesses.
And what I want to tell my teams and I have told my teams is, "Listen, they got to make decisions based on their business realities just like we do, but let's not give them a reason to stop working with us. Let's not even give them that little bit of a doubt that we're not capable of continuing to deliver great work and during this time."
Traci:
Yeah, that is so important. It's so important too, and it's our third little bucket to talk about and we were talking about this before we started recording, is staying focused on the business. That's exactly what you're talking about here and the clarity that you're giving your team that we have to keep doing business with the level of excellence we've always done it.
So if we take our eye off the ball, we become distracted, we give our clients a reason to believe that we're not dialed in because of what's going on, that's when things start to unravel. And so keeping the team focused on what we can control, and then you as a leader staying focused on what you can control is key. I know we've talked about this in the past, and I think it's important to bring up here is getting clear on our numbers, getting clear on our contingency plans and knowing are there steps we're going to have to take if this happens? I think that's a good point for us to maybe talk about.
I know that we've talked through and have done this in the past is looked at your business and gotten clear on the numbers. And I think that's really an important exercise for all business owners to go through in good times or in bad times, is to say "Strategically, I need to look at my business, know where we stand, what we need to accomplish, how much money do we have in the bank? How much reserves?" All of those things. Do you feel like that's been a good exercise for you in the past and even today to really take a step out of the business and really look at the business as a whole?
Rob:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, those that follow me and outside of this podcast know that I'm an operations nut, and have all those plans and models and build all those things out. I live and die with the business, with those models and how those things get impacted. As far as what is going on right now, it's been really interesting because all of the things that we build our assumptions on don't seem to be as concrete as they usually are. It seems like signed contracts are changing underneath us. Our clients may or may not pay their bills in the timely manner because of their business realities. You may have client…we have some clients that are trying to change their terms mid-flight, and how do you deal with that? But I think that if you don't have that, then you can't really make any of the decisions.
I know that a couple of weeks ago I spent two days just locked myself into a space and built models, talked to legal, made sure that I was 100% prepared for any business decisions that would have to be made as far as team size, and what to do, and all of that. And for me, I'm a pretty positive person. I really don't like spending my days doing that kind of planning.
But there was definitely peace for me on the other side of that. Once that was done, I was able to say, "Okay, I am prepared. We have a sheet. I've had conversations with all of the appropriate leaders and we're ready to make the right decisions when that information comes available to us." And one of the things I said to a couple of our directors is like, "Hey, if you'd like to have a conversation about any of these things, now is the time. When we get in the moment and we start learning things, we're going to have to act quickly, and that is not the time to argue with me. Now is if you'd like to discuss, I want to do it now, we can't get caught up in the details when we start having to do this for real." And that was...those two days were rough, but I'm going to tell you, I felt a whole lot better on the other side of that.
Traci:
Oh yeah. And I think that is such an amazing, wonderful and right thing to do. You have to take some time out. I mean, we know we all do it regularly. I mean, we're Navigate The Journey. We're strategic planners, right? So we pull teams together and spend a whole day doing strategic planning. Now we're doing it differently because we're in a time where business is tough and so we want to look at and plan for shorter periods of time. And instead of looking through the end of 2020, don't do that. Let's just look at the next 60, 90 days and ask ourselves the questions, "Can we afford to let clients pay late? If we can, what percentage of those clients? How should we answer these questions? Can we keep all our staff? For how long? All these contingency plans, where do the opportunities lie?" We shouldn't just be talking about the grim realities, but we should be talking about are there opportunities out there that we're not responding to right now? We have to really pull ourselves out, ask ourselves all of these questions.
Strategic planning should not go by the wayside just because we're in a tumultuous time. If anything, you've got to really up your game in that department. Pull your team together, ask these questions and I love how you framed it. Ask these questions now so that when you're in the thick of it, you know how to act. Argue through it now, let's make these decisions now and then the weight is lifted off of us and we can move forward and keep doing business, hop back into the weeds and be doing business. So yeah, I just think that staying focused and clear on those things, on what we can control is key.
And the last thing I'll say in the last few minutes that we have is keep your team culture strong. It's really easy during tough times to let morale dip and be like, "Well, of course morale's not great. We're going through a tough time." We have to get creative, we have to think of ways to really keep that culture because that culture is what's going to carry us through to the other side of this. So yes, recognize the bomber of the hard situation we're in, but then pivot. And use technology, Slack chats, happy hours nowadays, virtual happy hours, have games, keep growth and development going. All of these things are really important, but we want to come out the other side without having to put the pieces back together of our culture. We want to come out the other side where our culture is still cohesive, strong, and healthy.
Rob:
Yeah, it's interesting. During the time that I was doing that planning, I reached out to our back office staff and I was like, "Hey, I need all of you to focus on things that we can do remotely together that we can have those light moments and all of that." And they've come up with some great ideas.
We've got some online trivia stuff that we're working on. We've got people connected to play video games together through some of those platforms. Last week we did a...I take a lot of photos when I travel with people, so I've gotten years of photos of different Sparkboxers from different trips that I've taken. And we did...we found some good ones and we did meme that photo contest where everybody took a photo of our Director of Projects doing something funny and everybody took turns memeing that photo and then suggesting it and voting on it. And it ended up being a really fun moment that we could share.
Traci:
That's great. I mean, I've heard so many great fun stories where there are virtual happy hours. Everybody's on the screen, they do two truths and a lie. I've heard a client was talking about doing the Big Red Chair, if you ever watched the Graham Norton Show. So everybody gets a chance on the Big Red Chair to tell their most embarrassing story or their star encounter or whatever. I've heard of people who've created Google Docs with everybody's loading in their best movies, the best books to read, the best TV shows to stream, the best podcasts to listen to.
Everybody's getting so creative, and I think it's such a wonderful outcome of what's happening now in the world, is people are finding ways to stay connected and also in the process are learning more about each other. I think in some ways a virtual environment really helps everybody, puts them all on equal footing, whether you're an introvert or extrovert. When you can have that equal voice and get involved in the fun, I think it's going to be great for those teams that are really being intentional about it during this time.
Rob:
Yeah, I agree. I think it's interesting because nobody's got somewhere they have to go.
Traci:
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. For good or bad, we're stuck.
Rob:
So maybe this is a...I think a lot of companies will come out stronger from a business point of view. I think that there is amazing opportunity on the other side of this. There's going to be a lot of pent up demand and that. So I think that there's some rosy outlook.
We're all working through it together. And I think that's the main message that I've wanted to share with our team is, on top of the or four points is, "Hey, we're all in this together. This is all happening to us. We're all in this together. Let's support each other the best way we know possible."
Traci:
Yeah. And I think it is so important for leaders to be saying that over and over again. And also to be saying, "We're going to get through the other side. We're going to get through. I'm not sure when, I can't give you a date, but we are going to get through."
And time and time again psychologists have all said that people, whether you're in a war situation, whether you're held prisoner of war, whatever, the people who have that mentality are the ones that come out the other side intact. And so keep telling your team like, "Look, we're going to get through this. We are." And to stay consistent.
Rob:
Yeah. So why don't you run through your four things real quick to wrap this up.
Traci:
So as a leader, we need to remember to be human, be overly human. And second, to communicate and stay visible as a leader. Third, stay focused on your business and keep the team focused on what you can control. And lastly, just keep your team culture strong. Don't let your morale dip. Be intentional.
Rob:
Yeah. Thanks Traci.
Traci:
Thank you.
Announcer:
Thanks for listening to the Overly Human podcast. We know you have a lot of choices, and we're grateful you chose us. If you like what you've heard, please subscribe and tell your friends to listen as well. The Overly Human podcast is brought to you by Navigate the Journey and Sparkbox. For more information on this podcast, or to get in touch with Traci or Rob, go to overlyhuman.com. Thanks for listening.
