As COVID-19 continues to wreak havoc across the globe, it is essential that those in leadership positions quickly assess the landscape and take action to adapt to our current reality.
During times of crisis, there are three fundamental truths no matter the situation:
- Ensure you have the right players on the team
- Quickly assess the 20% that matters
- Communicate, communicate, communicate!
One of the most important places to start is making sure you have the right people on the team. This is not the time to learn on the job. If you don’t have the capability internally, bring in an expert so that you and your team can focus on the highest value aspects. There is no need to reinvent the wheel here, if you do not do this, you will be playing whack a mole and burning up valuable time.
Ensure you and your team move quickly to assess and filter information to determine what is noise and what really matters for your business. Decisions will have to be made despite the significant number of unknown variables. The sooner you get to the 20% that matters for your business, the sooner you can make an informed decision.
Finally, regular communication is critical during a crisis. Too often we see companies waiting for answers before they communicate to the various stakeholders. This critical mistake always ends up costing more time in the end. Communicate what you can, when you can, even if it isn’t the whole perfect picture you would like it to be.
While the full impact of the pandemic remains an unknown, one thing is for certain: we are all in this together and we will solve this together.