Wow. What a week.
I got to come alongside leaders and partners across multiple industries, service organizations, and educational institutions. We talked about how they are holding up, as well as how they can show up for their firms, families, and communities.
We talked about how to approach the practical problems they are facing:
- How to lead by example, keeping people first
- How to lead when you are both leader and learner (i.e., the “war room” work)
- How to develop a clear objective to lead toward when the way forward is not clear
- How to approach the hard work of resource management – financial, people, and product choices
We talked through the four phases framework that I outlined last week (if you haven’t read the article, you’ll find it here). Many leaders identified themselves in late Phase One – that is a mature “war room” structure where the senior leaders meet daily for 45-90 minutes and deal with all the directional decisions that have come to their desks.
Phase One is an important step in crisis management, as there is strong directional guidance needed. In short, this is the time when leaders need to make clear and timely tactical decisions.
Complex firms are commonly heavily biased towards process, which was built for a different more predictable time. But during a crisis, all the decision making flows to the top of the house. This is an intense time, where real-time learning and decision making go hand in hand. This differs from the past when all the supervisors and managers know instinctively what needs to be done and can make decisions locally. When everyone is stunned from the event, their natural instincts will be to pass the decision to the top.
Coaching Point One: Manage Fatigue
There is something called “war room fatigue,” and because of the evolving nature of this virus, it is well suited to overstretch leadership that is used to “winning” by outworking an issue to push past their capacity to respond well. Mature crisis leaders know that they need to take time away from the front line to eat, rest and exercise. Handing off the leadership baton to your COO while you regather your center is a sign of being a good leader – not weakness.
Coaching Point Two: Transfer of Leadership
There comes a time, as this phase matures, that it’s time to move decision making back into the middle leaders of the firm. You will know it’s time to start this phase when you are able to routinely connect decisions in the war room with your vision and values. In short, decision making, post-crisis, becomes teachable. You have examples and are able to help your mid-level leaders through the thought process.
To help you prepare to make this transition, I’m going to borrow a page from my private pilot training. It turns out that one of the most dangerous times in a flight is when you have two competent and rated pilots sitting in front of the dual controls of the aircraft. Managing the handoff of responsibility is so important, the FAA has made it part of the skill you must demonstrate before they will issue you a license:
How pilots transfer the controls
“During flight, there must always be a clear understanding between pilots of who has control of the aircraft. Prior to a flight, a briefing should be conducted that includes the procedure for the exchange of flight controls. A positive three-step process in the exchange of flight controls between pilots is a proven procedure and one that is strongly recommended. When one pilot wishes to give the other pilot control of the aircraft, he or she will say ‘You have the flight controls.’ The other pilot acknowledges immediately by saying ‘I have the flight controls.’ The first pilot again says ‘You have the flight controls.’ When control is returned to the first pilot, follow the same procedure. A visual check is recommended to verify that the exchange has occurred. There should never be any doubt as to who is flying the aircraft.“
Coaching Point Three: Capturing Senior Leadership Team Thought Models
During war room meetings, assign one attendee who is skilled at seeing the bigger picture to capture the thinking behind the decisions being made. This person needs to be someone who has standing and can ask the “why questions” without being intrusive, but also not reticent to speak up to make sure a logic connection is not missed.
This should be in addition to the usual practice of documenting the “decisions taken” during the session. These two documents will serve to capture the leadership’s “enterprise-level” thinking of how to make decisions that will be invaluable as you hold briefing sessions with functional leaders.
These two documents need to circulate to the senior leadership team after each session and should be offered as a draft to be improved and clarified. This approach will speed the formation of quality intellectual property that can become a clear advantage when it comes time to scale.
Coaching Point Four: Be Very Clear on What Needs to be Elevated
One of the most important parts of this emerging set of decision logic is a clear boundary between those decisions that can be taken locally and those that must be elevated to the senior team. Early on, you’ll want to train the team to over-communicate to be sure that that they haven’t wandered into a zone that could be problematic. Helping leaders clearly understand which decisions have the risk of inadvertently setting policy and immense liability is one side of the coin.
The flip side, is that those boundaries of empowerment are in many cases more important in complex firms that are biased toward risk aversion.
There is no stronger statement than when a person on the front line can look the client in the eye and say “I can make this exception for you.”
Finally: Ways to Get Staff Involved
If you are like my typical clients, you have many “pipeline” leaders who very much want to contribute to the discussion. A couple of thought starters for you here. Assign a team to develop insight around a couple of polarizing scenarios. E.g What happens if we can’t open our retail outlets until October? How will our market shift post-pandemic? Have a team anchor the above documents to our values document and develop a clear statement of what is and always will be true about our firm – you get the gist.
Help
If you’d like custom, first-person insights and guidance during this unique time, please reach out. You can call my direct line 847-651-1014 or put a meeting that works for you directly on my calendar with this link.
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