Archives 2020

As we navigate one of the biggest global crises many of us will ever experience in our lifetime, people around the world are in a state of what’s known as crisis management. While managing crises seems like an effective solution, it just means we’re in a constant state of doing the bare minimum to keep our head above water.

Of course, some crises are out of our control. But what we DO have control over is taking steps to be prepared (physically, mentally, financially, emotionally, and so on) for whatever life throws our way. We can also be proactive in dealing with problems as we encounter them.

What is crisis management?

Crisis management happens when you’re too busy dealing with the problem at hand so small emergencies grow into large problems or crises. We become overwhelmed rather than investing time and resources into long-term solutions…Solutions that could prevent the crisis from occurring in the first place.

If you’re constantly in a state of crisis management, chances are your productivity is almost nil. And your nerves are likely shot.

I heard from a reader who was struggling with crises or emergencies that continually get in the way of their priorities. Now, I’m not 100% sure what’s going on in this person’s life. But if crises and emergencies are routine, then they aren’t crises and emergencies…They’re normal life for that person.

It reminds me of an old story about a suitcase manufacturer based in Montreal.

They made beautiful, high-quality suitcases that people might have used during the glory days of plying the seas via ocean liner. Sadly, they were slowly going out of business. People were no longer sailing. Instead, they were flying and required smaller suitcases.

When asked why this company didn’t start making small suitcases, they responded resolutely that they “couldn’t switch over because they were too busy making large ones!”

The suitcase company was in a state of crisis management. So, what can be done to put an end to crisis management and deal with problems as they come our way?

By the way, don’t miss this post where I share the three things you need to lead through a crisis.

Got a problem? Fix it NOW!

If you’re going to put an end to crisis management, you’ve got to get out in front of the problems. You need to stop them before they occur.

It’s not that small business owners and non-profit leaders DON’T want to nip problems in the bud. But doing so requires the two precious commodities we’re usually short on, time and money.

And since there are always more tasks than people to do them, it’s easy to see why crisis management is a problem.

Or why during a crisis we just keep making large suitcases instead of biting the bullet and switching over to what our customers want.

When you’re fighting for your life, the urge to stay with what you know and where you are comfortable is natural and completely understandable.

You begin to feel like you’re sinking. Your perspective is diminished. Short-term survival instincts kick in.

You can’t manage if you’re always in a crisis.

If you’re dealing with competing priorities, it can turn into a form of crisis management. Click here for some actionable steps for dealing with competing priorities.

How to eliminate crisis management

You didn’t get to where you are all at once. You did it one small step at a time.

So you shouldn’t be surprised when I tell you that it’s the same as eliminating crisis management.

Here are some steps to consider:

1. Where did it start? The next time you’re faced with a problem, ask yourself and the people around you where it began. Find the true cause of the problem. Even if you don’t have the time or resources to fix the fundamental cause of the problem, just by identifying it, you’ve made progress in eliminating crisis management in your organization.
2. What are the quick wins? There probably are many problems that can be fixed by making small changes.
3. Are there sacred cows? These issues sound like, “We’ve always done it that way.”
4. What is your collective intellectual horsepower? Ask your staff, Board, or a mentor for their thoughts and suggestions for improving the organization.

Like the suitcase company, if you’re too busy dealing with the crisis to fix the causes, you’ll be stuck with a failing enterprise.

Only by fearlessly shining a light on what’s going on in your company will allow you to identify – then fix – your problems.

If you’re interested in going even deeper or moving your career to the next level, you’ll also want to have a look at my 1-on-1 coaching services.

If you enjoyed this article, be sure to check these out, too:

A Curated List of Crisis Leadership Articles
9 Stupid Management Practices (and what to do instead)
The 6T’s To Know What To Delegate

This article was originally published on September 25, 2015, and has been updated.

​ The coronavirus pandemic has generated tremendous uncertainty for businesses. But while the scale of the crisis is new, uncertainty itself is not—it’s a natural condition of doing business, and numerous tools exist to quantify and mitigate it.

 Most strategies rely on accumulated knowledge from the past—there’s a precedent on which to make sense of unknowns. COVID-19 breaks all that.

There is no precedent for how to respond to this moment, much less steer ahead.

 The biggest challenge to businesses right now isn’t uncertainty, but ambiguity—a condition in which the future is unclear, the past is no help, and we don’t even know what we don’t know. There’s no predicting when the pandemic will end, nor what “business as usual” will look like when it does.

Understanding that organizations are facing a broad range of challenges and have varying capacities, the question becomes, how might businesses create new ways to push ahead intelligently?

Being exceedingly human can offer leaders an alternate set of mindsets and methods for navigating ambiguity.

Here are four ways forward, along with inspiring examples and questions to drive action.

Read about the crisis no one saw coming.

Lead with people, and the business will follow.

Perhaps the most well-known design thinking model suggests that innovation occurs at the intersection of what the consumer wants, business viability, and technical feasibility. Many leaders are mired in thinking about what’s possible in this new world (technical feasibility) and what the economic impact of COVID-19 might be (business viability). While a pivot of your business model may be critical to staying afloat, it’s essential not to forget to lead with people.

Focusing on customers’ needs is a way to rally a company and employees around a purposeful cause.

It also offers focus and clarity operationally and strategically and points to a clear path forward that can deliver value. 

Questions to inspire action: 

• How are our core customers’ needs changing right now? How can we deliver on those needs during the pandemic?
• Who can we learn from in our organization that is closest to the needs of our people, partners, and consumers? Better yet, how might we engage with our people, partners, and consumers directly to learn from them?

Forge unexpected partnerships

Read  more about partnering up with your boss

Part of what makes the current changes, so complex is their scale.

It’s inspiring to see examples of companies redirecting their capabilities toward urgent needs—distilleries using their alcohol to produce hand sanitizer, automakers shifting to produce ventilators and respirators. But this kind of quick adaptation isn’t simple, and the opportunity isn’t always clear. Stepping outside of our domains and even our companies to connect can help. 

Pivoting calls for processing viewpoints from different departments and types of thinkers. Some companies are relying on open innovation, which can be used internally to break down silos, or externally to find new partners to bring ideas to life.

Leaders need to challenge their humility and courage and open up to anyone involved in business to work together to find partners, develop new offerings, and secure funding. 

Questions to inspire action: 

• What points of view are we missing on our team, and how might they help us uncover opportunities and identify blind spots? 
• Who can we partner with right now to deliver something unique or previously impossible to our teams, business, or society?

Experiment today to strengthen the business for tomorrow 

The time has never been better to experiment. This means considering fundamental changes in business and operating models out of necessity, while also prototyping new channels, offerings, pricing structures, and value propositions. 

Experimenting doesn’t have to result in a full-scale business model transformation or a polished new offering. This is a moment of extreme leniency: Customers will forgive scrappiness and even mistakes, and they’ll appreciate effort and vulnerability from organizations that try. Moreover, experimenting in low-fidelity ways allows teams to iterate, minimize costs, and preserve optionality quickly. In other words, there’s little investment required for a potentially high return.

Read about driving innovation through curiosity.

Questions to inspire action: 

• If we’re in an all-hands-on-deck moment, is there a group of employees that can start to think about how we might operate differently during COVID-19?
• What are simple experiments we could run in the next few days?
• If we’re able to dedicate time and resources, how might we use this moment to challenge the fundamental assumptions of our business and industry?
• What are the simple experiments we could run in the next few weeks?

Leverage scarcity 

It’s understandable to feel an overall sense of scarcity right now.

Organizations are inundated with legal, health, social, and operating constraints. It may seem counterintuitive, but limitations often create generative circumstances for growth and innovation. A recent study on innovation in crisis found that during the Great Depression. At the same time, the total number of patents decreased, but the average level of quality increased, which increased the overall impact of the innovation.

Questions to inspire action: 

• How might we turn these new constraints into the cornerstones of our business?
• What is the core promise or value we provide to customers?
• How might we repurpose the assets that we still have to keep delivering on this promise or value?

 Please read about my biggest business mistake

Final Thoughts

We are in challenging times.

Leaders are called to make difficult decisions about strategy, operations, and people.

As we continue to navigate these uncharted waters, we can find ways for ambiguity to be an aid rather than an impediment to progress.

Human led mindsets like empathy, collaboration, experimentation, and even scarcity can be guiding lights along the way.

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

— Martin Luther King, Jr.

It is easy to look good and behave well when everything around you is going well. If you want to see what a person is made of, put the pressure on them.

When a routine is thrown into the air, when people are stressed out, when employees are under unimaginable pressures, it is precisely the time when you want to test people for leadership potential.

Dozens of times in my life I have seen the sharpest, best & fittest soldier in the barracks or on the parade square fall to pieces under the leadership pressures, of lack of sleep, bad weather and the intensity of combat.

But the quiet person, the calm and steady one, the least suspecting man or woman rise to the moment and steps up into leadership like a well-fitted suit when given the opportunity.

In a recent post, I explored the difference between those high-performance employees and those who have high potential.

Read that post here

When looking for your next generation of leaders, it makes sense to cultivate the most extensive pool you can manage and explore who is stepping up during the current pandemic.

Start asking yourself:

Who is quietly leading their teams and their coworkers?

Who is the person other employees look to for help and guidance instead of existing managers?

Who is bringing the ideas forward?

When thinking about the future executives should stop old-school thinking by stopping these common errors:

1. Overvaluing job performance and undervalue character traits.
2. Promoting people who look, talk, act, and manage as they do.
3. Undervaluing opinions of your employees.

Performance Matters. But Potential Matters More.

Then, when looking for leaders, you can focus less on performance and more on actual leadership skills, like

• Curiosity;
• Emotional intelligence; or the
• Ability to communicate.

Read more about Emotional Intelligence.

When trying to identify future leaders, merely skimming from the top layer of job performers is seldom the best strategy.

Look for People Willing to Try Different Solutions — and Accept the Consequences

Pointing out problems is easy.

What is harder is to come up with solutions.

Even harder? Have the wisdom to change things when the first solution doesn’t work.

Great leaders aren’t only those with the best ideas. They’re also willing to accept responsibility for the decisions they’ve made: especially their failures. That’s what inspires other people.

So when looking for leaders, it’s not only essential to search for creative thinkers. You also want to find people with the courage to fail, publicly, and to re-evaluate their strategies accordingly.

The Best Leaders Are Not Always Those Who Talk the Most

Studies show that people who talk the most in meetings tend to get their performance rated as more intelligent, and they overwhelmingly tend to be male.

Put differently, those people who seem to be leading in group settings may, in fact, not be leading at all – they’re just talking a lot. 

Consider that maybe the best leader is the person best able to build consensus or is the quiet person who waits to speak but always comes up with the most forward-thinking solution.

Some leaders may be quite successful with personal projects.

Point being, many successful people keep their wins to their selves.

Read about boastful leadership

Trust Your Employees’ Opinions

Too many executives tend to imagine that they can easily pick out leadership potential, but relying only on your own opinions can limit the range of people you notice.

Here’s a different idea: ask your employees what they think.

Every once in a while, ask all employees who, other than themselves, they think possesses the most leadership potential.

Whom would they follow into uncharted territory?

To whom would they most trust their jobs or the future of the company?

This bottom-up approach to identifying leaders can pay huge dividends: you’re not only telling your employees that you value their opinions but also locating people whom employees already look for guidance.

I’ve long used curiosity as a tool to help me understand what is happening around me.

Now and for the record, a Harvard Business Review and a Price Waterhouse Cooper study confirms that I wasn’t just nosy. Research shows that I was attuned to better leadership.

During the 2011 Slave Lake wildfires, I led the disaster response. There is a normal ebb and flow to disasters, but at a certain point, the data showed that the need for disaster assistance was falling off.

I could have assumed we solved the problem, but something didn’t feel right.

Curiosity forced me to explore the data, and I found that we were missing a new demographic of a client. This resulted in a rejigging of our disaster assistance program to suit the needs of the community.

Click to watch the video of me telling the story.

Why Curiosity Is An Important Leadership Mindset

Consider the following:

• If you think you know, then you won’t ask.
• If you think things are a certain way, then you won’t notice changing conditions.
• When you think you have all the relevant information, then you won’t look for other information.
• If you feel you have the solution, then you won’t explore different answers.
• If you think you’re right, then you won’t listen to other people.
• When you think you know, you won’t ask, see, or hear.

“I think” is a very dangerous leadership stance in a rapidly changing world. Instead, I encourage you to be curious about what you might not know. The worst-case scenario is that you’ll learn something new!

There’s a certain kind of curiosity that’s particularly useful for leaders. Keep reading for five ways to develop this skill.

How To Be ‘Leader’ Curious

Five practices to help you become more curious:

1. Listen to learn, rather than respond. Most of us listen so we can confirm our opinions, or we only listen so we can respond to objections. Try listening to learn something instead. Silence can be a handy conversational tool. Here are three tips to help you use silence to improve your conversation skills.
2. Pretend you don’t know the answer. Once you believe that you know, you will stop looking, listening, or testing. But this is precisely what you need to do to spot trends and problems before they arrive.
3. Hold the tension. When challenged with something that seems impossible, don’t be quick to dismiss the idea. Hold the tension. Get curious. Explore. Everything new was once impossible until someone figured out it wasn’t.
4. Don’t be the smartest person in the room. The more experience and higher position you have, the more you think you’re the brightest in the room, and you stop learning. However, if you decide that others may have something to offer something you can learn from, then you will. Want to learn how to have better conversations? Here are six essential questions you can ask children and employees.
5. Think: “I wonder what else?” At best, we only see part of the picture, but not all of it. By asking, “I wonder what else?” you will keep looking, listening, and exploring.

Sure, there is some wasted effort and discussions in the process of being curious.

But at the risk of sacrificing a little efficiency for the sake of exploring, know that innovation and breakthrough rarely arrive in a straight line.

Curiosity will not only save from disaster but will allow you to notice and take advantage of opportunities.

Yes, curiosity is vital. But what is the essential leadership skill? Moral courage. Click here to find out why.

If you’re interested in going even deeper or moving your career to the next level, you’ll also want to have a look at my 1-on-1 coaching services.

If you enjoyed this article, be sure to check these out, too:

A Curated List of Crisis Leadership Articles
9 Stupid Management Practices (and what to do instead)
The 6T’s To Know What To Delegate

This article was originally published on January 18, 2019, and has been updated.

Recently a community of leaders discussed leadership and management issues they are facing during the COVID crisis.

Two questions came up, and we discussed best practises on how to:

• Manage laying people off during COVID?
• Provide employee performance management while people are working from home during COVID?

The answers to the discussion are below …

How does a leader manage laying people off during COVID?

First, as a leader, you should not deal with a layoff situation in the same way you would normally. In my experience, a ‘normal’ layoff is usually done in a clinical, and often a cold-hearted way.

People are called into a room and told that they are being laid off; concurrently, their IT, phone and building access is shut off. They are escorted back to their office to gather up their personal effects and then out the door.

We’ve all heard layoff horror stories with people left sitting on the curb with a banker’s box of stuff waiting for a ride home, or their building access is shut off before they are advised of what is happening.

To state the obvious, COVID is a different circumstance. People are being laid off due to events entirely outside of their and their employer’s control.

Read how you can do terrible things to good people.

So this would be my recommendations:

1. Keep the whole team advised that layoffs are likely inevitable. You people are not stupid and will be expecting bad news, and if you don’t talk to them frankly and honestly, they will assume the worse and make up a story that is a billion times worse than the real situation.

2. If you are considering a limited layoff, ask your team how to handle it. Maybe some people may choose to be laid off, some might choose reduced hours, or some may want to burn off vacation & lieu time.

3. If layoffs are the only option, be exceedingly human. If the number is small, then have one-on-one conversations. If it is a large number of employees, set up videoconferencing or bring people together in one place (of course respecting social distancing)

4. The CEO, Executive Director, or the most senior person, should be the one delivering the news.

5. Ensure you have as much information and even assistance available so people can apply for federal, state or provincial COVID financial supports (like EI/UI)

6. Allow people to grieve and share before the layoff takes effect.

7. And finally, How can you keep the laid-off people connected to you, the company and their coworkers? Consider video social events, like Zoom Happy hours, where everyone can, if they choose, join in and stay connected. Or, maintain e-newsletters to the laid-off people, so they hear what is going on.

How does a leader provide employee performance management while people are working from home during COVID?

1. Unless an employee is just bad, dishonest or breaking company rules, most performance issues are rooted in the leader failing to set expectations upfront and early.

Read more about leading when authority is limited

2. If you have employees working remotely and from home, make sure they clearly understand what you expect.

Of course, you need to be reasonable to the current circumstances. But it is not unreasonable for employees to meet deadlines, do good work and be available for team calls and videoconferencing.

You are still paying them regardless of where they are working.

3. If someone is not performing to your expectations, then you can follow this framework for sensitive conversations using the 4 F’s:

• • First: When you make the appointment, say that you want to have a conversation that will be valuable to your working relationship
  • Facts: Begin the meeting by retelling what happened for each of you
  • Feelings: Tell the impact that the meeting had on you
  • Future: Help each other figure out what you could do differently and what can be done by everybody to address the situation

I often work with people who are transitioning from follower to leader.

The question always arises is: What characteristic makes a good leader?

I tell them the answer is moral courage. 

I realized I was never as concerned about my boss’s technical expertise as I was about their moral courage, honesty, and ethics.

Coincidentally, Abacus Data shared the results of a poll examining Canadians opinions of the leadership, answering the question by saying:

“Leadership can be hard to define – but … people … know what they like when they see it. We gave respondents a forced-choice question about what was most important to them in supporting a … leader. By a considerable margin, “values” (42%) were identified as the top quality to look for, followed by judgment (29%). “Ideas” (15%) and “attitude” (13%) were well back in consideration.

What Matters Most in a Leader?

For me, values and judgment add up to Moral Courage. Historically, courage hasn’t been recognized as an essential attribute for business leaders.

This is changing.

Future leaders will need the ability to act courageously.

Without question, innovation is needed in “for’ and ‘not for’ profit businesses, but courage makes change possible. 

In a recent Harvard Business Review article, Rosabeth Moss Kantor wrote:” moral courage enables people to stand up for principle rather than stand on the sidelines.” 

What is Moral Courage in Leadership?

Courage in leadership is doing what’s right despite being afraid of risking negative repercussions.

Fear is the most common reason people give when they avoid being courageous. Think about how you feel when you watch a leader who demonstrates personal courage. Most likely, you will trust that leader more.

Courage comes from being very clear about essential values and working to achieve goals that are consistent with those values.

Ultimately, every leader has the choice to either lead with courage or lead without it.

Examples of Courageous Leadership Behaviours

1. Moral courage & humility when providing honest feedback in conversations and discussions or managing your supervisors or boards
2. Allowing alternative & opposing viewpoints to be shared with the rest of the team.
3. Speaking up rather than being compliant in silence.
4. Leading through change & not settling for “we have always done it this way.”
5. Taking ownership when you are in uncharted territory, and the safe path is to do nothing.

How are you, or your organization, doing at removing the barriers to morally courageous behaviour? Try this simple exercise here to find out. 

Developing Moral Courage

1. Be very clear about your vision and values.
2. Scripting in advance what to say.
3. Anticipate those who will disagree.
4. Be honest in admitting when you have made a mistake or taken a wrong path.
5. Be willing to entertain new ideas and change your assumptions.

Courage is a learned skill, and we all can be courageous. Being brave means stepping out of your comfort zone and taking risks.

As we invest in the future and emerging leaders, isn’t it better to learn values, judgment, and moral courage in a SYSTEMATIC and PURPOSEFUL way instead of allowing them to muddle through?

Do you think fear is driving your leadership actions? Here are 7 questions to prevent fear of leadership failure. 

If you’re interested in going more profound or moving your career to the next level, you’ll also want to look at my 1-on-1 coaching services.

If you enjoyed this article, be sure to check these out, too:

How One Word Can Damage Workplace Culture

9 Stupid Management Practices (and what to do instead)

The 6T’s To Know What To Delegate

This article was originally published on January 5, 2015, and has been updated.