Working on organizational strategy during COVID-19 presents organizations with new challenges.
While everyone expects this work to be more difficult (thanks to uncertainty caused by global health, economic and racial crises), what has caught many leaders by surprise is the disappointment, anger and guilt they feel as they strategize for the future.
An example:
We are working with an organization coming off a very impressive 2019. They had completed a successful capital campaign, were spot on with mission delivery and reaching more people than ever before. Leadership had every expectation that the momentum and success they had created would continue into 2020.
Then COVID-19 hit and they realized they were going to need to make significant adjustments in strategy just to sustain the organization, and it hit them hard.
All of this meant that before they could begin to think about strategies for the future, we needed to help them recognize and work through all these feelings, including a strong sense of loss.
In short, the leaders needed to rebuild their resiliency in order to do the tough work ahead, and acknowledging this and keeping resiliency front and center became an organizing principle for the process.
These particular leaders were naturally genuine and empathetic. But they also needed to be disciplined and pragmatic in order to protect financial and operational performance. So the conversations we facilitated and the goals we set needed to reflect both the heads and the hearts within the organization.
Here's how we did just that:
First, we encouraged the leaders to put mission first. We set the stage for this by asking: What are you here to do and who do you serve?
The way we framed it allowed the team to celebrate the accomplishments and good work they were doing, while also pushing them to think more creatively about how to deliver and fund their organization's mission.
Second, we instilled a sense of urgency without introducing panic.
The goal was to take decisive action based on what we knew at the time, acknowledging that we might have to revisit directives and do some clean up as more and more clarity was gained. As part of this plan, we ensured the leaders understood that the rocky road caused by Covid-19 was rendering many of the most tried and true approaches to strategy development irrelevant and that past data was no longer as reliable. In other words, we helped them realize they were going to need to act even though uncertain and be willing to adjust without feeling like they had failed.
Approaching it this way, let the leadership team off the hook for getting everything 100% correct right out of the gate and made it possible for them to celebrate being decisive even if they were only 80% correct.
Thirdly, we encouraged the leaders to be transparent with their team and board about the challenges and opportunities facing the organization. Being completely open and honest released the guilt they felt around not being able to achieve earlier goals — and, at the same time, it increased support from those around them and created renewed excitement about the future.
Finally, we asked the leaders to focus on the horizon rather than the weeds. Specifically, we tasked them to think through how they needed to position the organization going into 2022.
Taking the long view helped the leaders weather daily pivots and setbacks without experiencing too much disappointment. They had their eye on the bigger picture and seeing progress toward it kept them optimistic and upbeat despite the constant bumps caused by COVID-19.
The critical takeaway from this example:
COVID-19 is creating great turmoil in business and everyone is working hard to overcome a multitude of challenges. But if you fail to also address the emotional turmoil you're experiencing as a leader during this time, you're likely to encounter even more obstacles to success — obstacles of cloudy origin and which even the best business brains can't fully fix.
