How to lead your team in times of crisis.

11 Keys to Calm Communication that Boosts Productivity, Even in Troubled Times.

The Covid-19 virus has disrupted and rearranged the workplace greatly speed. In the span of a week or so, organizations across every sector have sent millions of employees home to work remotely. Without warning — and in many cases, without preparation of any kind — leaders have been thrust into the position of leading virtual teams, many for the first time.

It’s challenging enough to manage yourself in quarantine without face-to-face human interaction and the structure of a typical workday. Now add to that the task of managing a team under those conditions, especially when you’ve never done it before. It can be daunting.

Pressurized conditions, heightened uncertainty, and an overall sense of dislocation make it even more difficult. Under quarantine, every aspect of the leader’s role is magnified and complicated. You’ll need to adapt your leadership style to a new context.

More than ever, effective communication with your team is vital. This is an endurance game. . . Are you ready to play? Here are a few suggestions on how to lead through a crisis and win the game! As a way to give you additional support, I’m starting a series of FaceBook live videos on Leading under quarantine. I will offer suggestions on how to lead through this crisis and win the game! I will be live on this Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/TransformativeConversations/ on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays @ 9:00 am (Eastern) starting April 6, 2020.

Keep a broad view

The human brain is programmed to narrow its focus in the face of a threat. The trap is that your field of vision becomes restricted only to what’s happening in the moment. As a leader you need to intentionally pull back, open your mental aperture to the meta — taking a broad, holistic view of both challenges and opportunities. Properly focused you will be able not only to lead in the moment, but also to lead for what happens after the immediate crisis is over. Then, create opportunities for your team to also expand their focus and come up with creative ideas for the “after.” Don’t let every single virtual team meeting focus only on the now. Ask open questions that can lead them to think and have a conversation about how lessons learned during the crisis can apply to better practices after the crisis.

Take care of yourself

In order to lead well, you have to take care of your needs too. If you don’t, you’ll not be able to support your team in the way they need to be supported. Therefore, who supports you? Is your partner, or any other family member there for you? Is there a friend you can talk to? Is there a coach or therapist you need to reach out to for help? Whatever it takes, your mental and emotional wellbeing has to come first.

Be flexible 

Most teams are socialized and accustomed to synchronous work and standardization. They work together, in the same office, under the same working conditions, with the same work schedule. In a crisis environment like the one with the COVI-19 virus, you must help your teams shift immediately to asynchronous work and personalization. You’ll need to let go of when and how tasks are accomplished. You have to stop micromanaging and allow team members to accomplish their responsibilities on their own terms. This means focusing on results, not hours of work, and offering more flexibility. Listen to what they tell you they need and let them experiment with the best way they can make things work.

Stay in regular touch 

If you want to build and sustain morale and engagement, you have to stay in regular contact utilizing any messaging system that is available to you and your team.  Don’t let an employee go half a day without checking in. You might want to hold a team huddle every day, ideally through video (like in the zoom video platform).  Set the expectation that everyone be present and not distracted, but keep the meeting short and to the point. Make sure you include all the voices.

Support continued learning 

Learning doesn’t have to stop in this new environment. In fact, learning can be helpful. But you have to be practical and keep learning opportunities short.  Focus on sharing short lessons on a single topic in a five to 10-minute segment. These might cover a specific tool, behavior, or skill. When people are in crisis, their attention span is short. You could share part of a relevant podcast, or something you learned in a blog post. What’s important is to keep the learning relevant and allow team members to identify what topics they want. You could do group learning and ask a different team member to choose a topic and debrief the lesson. Then lead a short discussion about the application, relevance, and implications of what everyone learned. The more interactive, the better the learning experience will be. Encourage then sharing of thoughts and ask open ended questions.

Assign buddies and peer coaches to add a layer of mutual support 

You might not be able to attend to every team member’s needs or you will quickly exhaust your own capacity. Organize team members into pairs with each individual assigned as a buddy and peer coach.  This shared leadership model creates a second layer of mutual support and guards against emotional isolation. Ask the buddies to check in daily and assess overall engagement and well-being. If there are any issues that you need to know about or resolve, they can let you know in a short communication. Make sure you follow up.

Attend to tone and voice clues   

It’s harder to read the emotional cues of your people when you aren’t in the same room.  Pay close attention to: patterns in the tone of written communication; rate, volume, pitch, and inflection of voice communication; and any physical gestures in video communication. If you already know your people well, changes in these patterns will help you identify early that a team member may need some additional support.

Model optimism and drain fear

Fear is contagious, but so is optimism. When you demonstrate hopefulness and confidence in the future you will be better able to help your team members find meaning and purpose in work, especially under stressful conditions. And don’t forget to use humor as a relief valve. Fear freezes initiative, ties up creativity, and yields compliance instead of commitment. Calm and resilience in times of crisis are often an enabling factor in sparking innovation and transformation.  The quarantine conditions could be a stimulus for new ideas and solutions to emerge if you encourage positive thinking and communication.

Update frequently

Uncertainty fuels anxiety. Communication and sharing prevent an information vacuum and decreases uncertainty. Communicate regularly even if you don’t have new information to share. Being totally transparent through a crisis with frequent updates is the ultimate expression of good faith, empathy, and genuine concern for your team. It will also increase trust and the feeling that you care.

Remember the human factor

While it may seem obvious, crises affect people. Don’t become trapped by focusing on the daily metrics of share price, revenue, and costs. These are important, but they are the outcome of the coordinated efforts of people. Organizations exist in order to accomplish together things that individuals cannot do alone.  

Make it crystal clear to your team members that your chief concern is their well-being.  Periodically ask each team member two quick questions. First, on a zero-to-10 scale, rate the level of stress you currently feel. Second, using that same scale, rate your level of overall engagement. Then, if need be, find ways to help them reduce stress or improve engagement. You might encourage them to seek professional help if stress is too high. Or make available for them resources. Above all, make sure your compassion levels are higher than your need for productivity.

Share purpose and meaning

Do your best to unite people in their efforts and goals as valued members of a cohesive team. This starts with a common, clearly articulated mission that infuses the work with purpose. If you only assign tasks without reminding people of the bigger picture, the disconnection from the others will make it more difficult to feel that their work matters.

This is an ideal time to connect better through conversations and shared stories. Since you can’t stop in the hallway to have a quick chat, or have lunch together, you will need to create other ways to provide that connection. Keep tuned in to your team’s needs, worries, and gains and make sure they know you care not only about their contribution to the team, but about their personal and family wellbeing also.

By following these suggestions, you can came out at the end of the crisis with a more loyal and coherent team, and feeling more confident and resilient.

P.S.

I created a handy infographic with the highlights of this post. You can get it as a free gift from me.

Credit: The Harvard Business Review shared some of theses ideas last month. I have adapted and added my own thinking about them. To see the original article, go to:  https://hbr.org/2020/03/8-ways-to-manage-your-team-while-social-distancing?utm_source=linkedin&utm_campaign=hbr&utm_medium=social