We’ve just completed four months of the brutal new normal. I’ve been speaking with dozens of leaders who have been doing the hard work of finding a path forward where almost every pre-COVID pattern has been changed.
The sheer amount of disruption to our patterns has been staggering, for instance where we work, how we play and how well we sleep – just to name a few. When our patterns are disrupted, we are naturally and necessarily pushed back on our heels to regather, reframe, and reload. This “reverse cycle” of getting back to our feet, restoring our core ability to literally feed ourselves, keep our health and the welfare of those around us has been the work for the first half of this year.
We are starting the second half without a clear forecast, or as of this writing, knowledge of just how disrupted our patterns will remain. It does seem clear that the strategy to just “hunker down” (trying to preserve the past “normal” and wait it out) has been superseded by a more complex set of challenges that involve a great deal of self-determined risk and reward.
In other words, just as earlier generations have lived in periods of higher risk and uncertainty, yet stepped forward to make their way in the world, so now do we.
As individuals and leaders, these times call for our best. And when everything has shifted, it’s the time to move back to first principles. A high-functioning business has two things at its core:
- A competency in selecting problems to solve and
- An ability to bring these challenges to their talented (and curated) teams in a way that provides for ownership and self-accountability in their solution
It is now our work to restore these core capabilities and get ourselves, our teams, and our firms into a strong and resilient position to be able to bring the best of our collective efforts to these extraordinary challenges. As we apply this to ourselves, it includes taking stock of who we are, how we show up, and the tools we have to bring to the table.
In my coaching work with clients, we talk about the psychology of leadership, but we don’t stop there. The key element of focus is our behaviors – those things that at the end of the day we actually do. As leaders, we all have different backgrounds, mindsets, and approaches, yet the common need of business during this time is clear thinking, quality decision making, and crystal clear execution.
Every good turnaround is centered on these three elements.
Quality of Critical Thinking
What it is: Critical thinking is a uniquely human activity. Key skills include the ability to look at complex topics and quickly unpack the links between ideas, test their relevance, and build supportive or critical arguments. Additionally, we need to use our intuitive skills to recognize inconsistencies and errors in reasoning, not letting an approach settle until it fits both intellectually and at the gut level. The results of this kind of work allow us to approach problems in a consistent and systematic way.
What it does for us now: The power of this activity during the crisis is to allow us to individually and collectively reflect on our situations, assumptions, and beliefs. By working hard to keep ourselves out of binary decisions through rich critical thinking, we find that we may not always be able to make the perfect plan, but frequently we can choose the next path that leads to better options and is directionally correct.
Action Point: Making room for the muse is key. Build time into your calendar to reflect on key critical insights and thought work you need to do as an individual. Critical thinking shows up best when the mind is able to move to a new task and sift through your subconscious in “idle” mode.
Quality of Decision Making
What it is: One could argue that the primary function of business is to make quality decisions. These decisions include prioritization and resource allocation for our most critical assets – people, processes, and technology. The value of a business can be thought of as the cumulative sum of the quality of the decisions made.
What it does for us now: In the course of normalcy, much of our decision making is simply extending and applying thought models that already exist. The crisis has changed all that. So while older models may be useful, decision making based on a single “legacy” model is brittle in this new world.
In my coaching work, we are focusing on two areas: the first being quickly assembling adjacent scenarios using tools like traditional four-box modeling so we can find our way through those scenarios that are not favorable but possible. The second coaching point is that this is a time for doing strategic work “on note cards.” This means that while a full workup (i.e., perfection) of each scenario is not necessary, you do need to “go there” mentally and pencil out your work to get a more robust outcome. We need to avoid “analysis paralysis” at all costs.
Action Point: What key decisions are you facing this week? What are your assumptions? Try flipping the assumptions to discover potential scenarios that you need to explore via the card method.
Quality of Action Taking
What it is: A decision is simply a fascinating intention until it’s taken to the action phase. Action taking is the process of assuring that decisions are reduced to bite-sized pieces and implemented. In most firms I work with, 90 percent of the effort is focused on the decision-making process, leaving the process of putting the decision to work with only a small amount of resources. In many cases, these resources are already overstretched, hard-working operational leaders.
What it does for us now: In the pre-COVID environment, there were well-structured people and process systems that took many of the actions and put them literally on autopilot. Since everything is now manual, we have to be very specific about our scope and intentions regarding each decision. Is this to be a validation test? A full-scale implementation to all regions? A conceptual whitepaper?
Action Point: What action taking in your firm is dependent on a single individual’s initiative to complete? How could you make that implementation more resilient?
Let’s Talk
If you are heading into the second half of the year with the feeling that you haven’t been able to get on top of the challenges with your usual high levels of clarity, consider reaching out to an external thought partner who can help. Executives have consistently experienced fresh insight, clarity and momentum as a result of our work together.
If you’d like to talk about how a coaching, advisory or consultative approach could help you create critical thinking, better decision making and more effective action taking, please reach out to scott@scottpropp.com or put a 20-minute appointment on the books using this link.
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