By Jack Gottlieb, 6 minute read
These are unprecedented circumstances with an unpredictable future. It seems our world changed overnight...and is continually changing every day. Our commitment here is to be your partner in driving the results that are Really Most Important™ now and for the long-term in your culture, strategy, and capability. This is about culture-driven solutions for you and your business, as well as your family.
It’s time to take the next step forward and be the leaders our organizations and families need us to be right now. In 16+ years, we have partnered with over 150 domestic and global organizations like yours to drive the transformation and growth they most needed to solve their most pressing challenges and seize their most critical opportunities internally and externally. In the past three weeks in response to many requests from our clients for insights on how to cope or adapt when events seem to be beyond their control, we offer you The 3 Critical Shifts You Must Make For Your Organization & Your People. (And then an invite below to the follow-up virtual workshop.)
FOR YOUR ORGANIZATION
[1] HOW TO RESPOND
We have to own the context, not chase the headlines. Make sure you are visible by leveraging all platforms (written, video, and audio) that people can know how as an organization you are interpreting all the different changes that are being made and new data coming out both globally, nationally, regionally, and within your specific communities. You want to be a voice whether it is just your CEO or multiple executives to showcase leadership and accessibility.
[2] BUILD RESILIENCY & RENEWAL
Give business units, regions, departments, and people the opportunity to share where their confidence and concerns are about your marketplace, customers, organization, and people on a weekly basis. From there, ask them what clarity they need to feel confident at home and at work. Integrate the opportunity to have them share ideas and innovations in how we can turn our obstacles into opportunities to still drive impact for your customers and people. Focus on what we can affect immediately without stressing where your current resources of people, time, and money, are needed.
[3] PREPARE FOR REALIGNMENT
Organizationally: You need to provide the direction and accountability that integrates your core vision, mission, values, and strategic priorities with what that means on a weekly basis for both the organization and each of your regions/business units. This should be something that people can access at any time, can easily be updated, and also balances organizational leadership with situational agility.
Each Team: Your people should be posting what their top three priorities are for each week (one for the marketplace/customer, one for the department, and one for how they plan to support the team/people). This fosters strength and alignment to support each other even while things are changing and there isn’t always an opportunity to connect with everyone with the usual intention and frequency.
Sign up for the Organization Webinar. Continue to bottom.
FOR ALL EMPLOYEES & FAMILIES
[1] HOW TO RESPOND
Define the three core values, connected beliefs, and action steps for how you want to process all of the incoming headlines, factoids, and updates so you can respond with confidence instead of react with fear. Example below:
Value: True Clarity™ (true understanding and clear direction to what is Really Most Important™).
Belief: “Beyond what I know, I want to truly understand what something really means to me and my family both now and in the coming months.”
Action: “For any news that comes in, I will ask myself if it is fact or perception and how I can use it to make better decisions for myself and my family.”
[2] BUILD RESILIENCY & RENEWAL
This is a monumental opportunity to rebuild your confidence and capability to become even stronger while we all progress through these difficult times. Define several goals where you want to improve: personal, relationships, professional, and marketplace/customer. Each morning and evening and once during the day, invest 20-30 minutes and focus on your own development. Here are some examples for you:
Personal Example: Lumosity, an app and online program to improve memory, focus, and problem solving. As going to the gym is for physical fitness, Lumosity is for mental fitness. In 15 minutes, you experience a set of exercises and receive a score so can have fun and compete against yourself. (This is something we use at TSG.)
Relationships Example: Family Meeting, intentional time you invest with your family each week to reconnect on what matters most, how everyone feels about what’s happening in the world, and what each of you are grateful for. Then put together a collaborative plan to stay focused and engaged as a family unit and do something fun and enriching to make each day special. (Yep, we’ve been doing this for years. You meet with your colleagues, why not with your family?)
Professional Example: Harvard Business Review, a great management magazine published six times a year. Even if you don’t subscribe, you will still find great business articles with long-term strategies and short-term tactics that you can utilize to grow your team and your company. (Yes, we use this, too.)
Marketplace/Customer Example: <Insert Your Industry Magazine here.> Find your industry magazine, association, or research would be most valuable to immerse into and stay connected to what your customers are dealing with. Also, give them a call to check in. (We’re staying connected with you right now.)
[3] PREPARE FOR REALIGNMENT
For You: Define your top three weekly priorities for yourself that are Really Most Important™ to your short-term progress and long-term success through the end of 2020. You’ll know they are Really Most Important™ by evaluating in this way: it’s the true focus or impact that if you do this and nothing else, you have accomplished everything, and if it is not achieved, it renders everything else we do meaningless.
For Your Family: Maybe all of you are at home. Maybe one of you is on the front lines in a hospital or clinic. Maybe you’re in an essential business. Maybe you have children who won’t be going back to school. Maybe everyone is losing their minds with the social distancing and lack of real interaction. Now is the time for you to lead: create experiences that can still provide your family what they are missing by asking them what’s Really Most Important to them? What will make this week special for you? What activities would you like to do? Then create a Family Action Plan so that each day, someone is empowered to make those memories a reality.
Sign up for the Personal Webinar. Continue to bottom.
SO WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? (TWO FREE WEBINAR OPTIONS!)
There is a tremendous amount of value, insights, and tips being provided to all of us whether they be articles, webinars, or tools. This is a real display of how we come together and do what’s necessary as a community, country, and world when we face a crisis. However, here is what’s missing at the core:
Understanding and aligning what is Really Most Important™ both organizationally and with our people to ensure stability and progression in these unprecedented and unpredictable times. Everyone needs to know what’s really going on and how it relates to the work they’re hired for and the results they’re paid to achieve.
Driving real change while staying agile to adjust on a daily and weekly basis as new information comes in about this global pandemic. This is about both cooperative teamwork as well as a collaborative framework to continue moving the business forward.
Too many businesses are waiting to see what happens, being reactive during this coronavirus crisis instead of being proactive and creating a 60‒90 day action plan to lead through it. Which one are you? Which one do you need to be?
TAKE ACTION: Build & Activate A Culture That Will Be Resilient, Create Renewal, & Realign In These Unpredictable Times
True Clarity™: Assess, analyze, and activate a true understanding of where your organization, regions, departments, and people are at during this global crisis and how to transform even in these uncertain times.
Aligned Accountability™: Apply your findings to the rhythm your organization needs most right now: Daily Focus, Weekly Planning, & Monthly Strategy & Adjustment.
Purposeful Execution™: Integrate this simple process so that you can build a culture that can respond, be resilient, create renewal, and realign while still driving progress.