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LEADING IN
COVID-19 UPDATED VERSIONMAY 2020
A PATHWAY THROUGH UNCERTAINTY
DISRUPTED TIMES
Over the last 18 months, I interviewed a cross section of Leaders to understand how they have led through disrupted times. The result of this investigation was the publication of a new White Paper called ‘Leadership 4.0’ which The Innovation Beehive launched at The Google Academy in London on 3rd March.
Shortly after the launch of the Leadership 4.0 framework, the social, economic and business landscape in the United Kingdom changed. Firstly, we were advised to work from home and then we went into lockdown.
We are living through the most disrupted and uncertain times in living history. Not since the Second World War has the UK Government adopted such an interventionist strategy. The payroll of private industry has effectively been nationalised with the introduction furlough leave and the Corona Virus Job Retention Scheme. The international economy has ground to a halt, with many financial commentators predicting a recession or, at the very least, a significant reduction in GDP.
Whilst there are many things outside of your control at the moment, as Leaders in your organisation, there is a real opportunity for you to be of service both to your people and your customers. The 4.0 Leadership framework was originally developed to meet the challenges of changing consumer and employee expectations, the huge potential of AI and its promise to create innovative new business models.
Reviewing it now, in the light of COVID-19, we believe that the lessons contained within it can be put to good work during this pandemic.
We hope that this revised White Paper will support you as a Leaders to navigate your way through the current ambiguity and crisis. If we can be of any assistance, please do not hesitate to call.
Mok O’Keeffe, May 2020
Foreword by Mok O’Keeffe Founder of The Innovation Beehive
THROUGH
LEADING
DISRUPTED
TIMES
INTRODUCTIONBased on our research into how Leaders have navigated a VUCA landscape we have discovered that those Leaders who are able to operate effectively and thrive in uncertainty are the ones who are able to embrace the volatility, uncertainty and ambiguity and use it as a catalyst to create a culture of innovation, customer closeness and team engagement.
Based on our research we have identified 5 key practices that distinguish these exceptional Leaders:
u Leading in Head
u Leading in Heart
u Leading in Health
u Leading in Habit
u Create History
Over the following pages you will see how each practice can support your Leadership behaviours during the
COVID-19 pandemic and how to apply them to navigate through the crisis and create a Roadmap Through
Uncertainty.
HEAD
LEADING IN
As the short-term impact of COVID-19 emerged, Leaders have been required to rapidly implement plans to ensure business continuity.
For many, the first step focussed on setting up the IT infrastructure for remote working and putting structures in place for team check-ins and virtual meetings.
Alongside this, Leaders now need to continually review the feasibility/constraints of homeworking and understand the impact of managing any designated key workers. The H&S complexity of homeworking and the legal implications of furlough leave require Leaders to work closely with their HR colleagues.
As many organisations have moved to remote working, Leaders should avoid the temptation to over communicate by email – don’t ever forget that the primary focus of the smart phone is as an oral, not a written, communication device. Leaders should role model best practice communication by ringing colleagues rather than shooting off an email; additionally they should avoid the trap of too many meetings – many clients have told us that they are so busy with virtual team meetings, check-ins and catch ups, that they are unable to be productive or get their actual work done!
Whilst the operational elements of Leading in Head described have been (in part) solved by many of our clients, this pandemic could force Leaders to over index in a crisis management mindset, where situational analysis and risk mitigation are the key focus areas. Yes, we are in a crisis. However, the volatility of the current situation means that the fixed mindset of crisis management (which usually results in the development and implementation of one single response strategy) is not appropriate. Rather than look for a fixed solution, Leaders should review the available data and continually update their position and action plan.
At The Innovation Beehive, we use stimulus to help our clients see their problems from a different, yet parallel, point of view. To effectively Lead in Head during this pandemic, a lot can be learned from the actions of fighter pilots.
Studies have shown that, during the Second World War, one particular way of approaching an air battle resulted in the survival of significantly more pilots than those who adopted a different approach.
The approach we advocate Leaders should adopt is that of the successful pilot – the OODA Loop:
LEADING IN HEAD
This loop should be continually revisited – as new data, bias and information becomes available.
Alongside the OODA Loop, we advocate that Leaders get comfortable with what Jim Collins’ ‘Good to Great’ called The Stockdale Paradox. The paradox is based on the life of Vice President Candidate and Vietnam war veteran, James Stockdale, who survived many years in a prisoner of war camp. When asked how he managed to survive and what lesson he would like to share, he said:
“you have to have faith that you will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties, and at the same time, must confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever that might be"
Now, more than ever, a ‘duality’ of Leadership is required. During this pandemic, Leaders need to inspire and motivate their people through incredible uncertainty, whilst at the same time, being open and transparent about the negative state of the business.
This ability to ‘juggle with both hands’ will be the greatest test of Leadership in our lifetime – Leaders are being asked to Lead in Head and Heart at the same time.
HEART
LEADING IN
The practice of Leading in Heart is essential if Leaders are to keep their people engaged and sustain their desired organisational culture.
Leading in Heart is about firstly seeking to understand what is important to your team member right now – knowing that this is likely to change at a later date. It involves what Stephen Covey in ‘The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’, described as “seeking first to understand”.
The Leader should not assume that everyone is ok – ever if she/he is being told this during their virtual team meetings. Working from home has added additional pressures to the working day. Alongside concerns about job security, the economy and the wellbeing of loved ones, your colleagues could potentially be experiencing more stress than they are comfortable admitting to.
The COVID-19 pandemic requires Leaders to create a space where team members are able to feel comfortable expressing their feelings and emotions – be they positive or negative. The Leader can encourage this emotional openness by sharing
their own personal experiences. This can provide a genuine opportunity to build a deeper relationship with colleagues and create more human and authentic connections, the benefits of which will long outlast the current crisis.
However, the Leader will again experience the duality of Leadership – while sharing their own personal experiences, they must ensure that they do not unwittingly cause their team to doubt the Leader’s capability and resilience to Lead them through the crisis.
By building closer relationships, where it is ok to not be ok, Leaders can encourage an environment of psychological safety, in which colleagues will feel more comfortable with experimentation and generating ideas on how overcome current constraints and seize opportunity.
This psychologically safe environment requires greater flexibility from Leaders as they are required to change from old ways of working and adopt new Habits, to Lead in the new normal.
LEADING IN HEART
HABIT
LEADING IN
COVID-19 has forced us all to develop the ability to adapt and learn quickly. Whilst Leaders should role model this, the last few weeks have forced everyone in the organisation to Lead in Habit and demonstrate new, agile ways of thinking and working.
Communication via technology can feel very one sided for the receiver. It is important that the Leader does not slip into broadcast mode, resulting in a very unengaging experience. To avoid this trap, Leaders may wish to think of their team interactions as a customer journey and to consciously plan the desired outcome (both functionally and emotionally) of each intervention.
In times of uncertainty the natural response can be to try to control as many factors as possible. However, those who will successfully navigate COVID-19 are the ones who are able to identify what is in their direct control, what is within their sphere of influence and those areas over which they have no control.
By identifying these three spheres, individuals are able to better manage their energy levels.
As a species we are masters of this agility. Charles Darwin noted in ‘The Origin of Species’:
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change”
Our old Habits of Leading will need to adapt and change if we are to Lead through these uncertain times.
Leaders must be prepared to change position as they practice the OODA loop and learn from mistakes.
Due to the dynamic situation we find ourselves in, mistakes may take place in a more public forum than is usual and Leaders must learn to get comfortable with learning in front of their team – rapid experimentation and prototyping won’t always work the first time!
Whilst failing in public may feel uncomfortable for many Leaders at first, adopting and role modelling this way of working will prove invaluable after the crisis, as a crucial behaviour in developing new products, services and experiences is the ability to rapidly experiment and learn from mistakes
LEADING IN HABIT
HEALTH
LEADING IN
During periods of self-isolation, with reduced social interaction and increased uncertainty, Leading in Health is a vital practice. There are at least three areas of Health that the Leaders should be aware of – physical, emotional and mental Health.
With the increase in working from home colleagues may feel the pressure to be always on. To counteract this and to ensure the wellbeing of their people, the Leader should encourage structure to a working day – suggesting their team members designate a ‘place of work’ in their home, make an effort to dress for the day and to flex their working patterns/hours as needed to accommodate additional responsibilities such as home schooling or volunteering.
To support physical and emotional wellbeing and help with more effective decision making, Leaders could practice The Shed Method, as described by Sara Milne Rowe in her fantastic book. Focussing on what you can control will result in less stress and contribute to better wellbeing. Sara identifies four elements of wellbeing that are within our sphere of control:
u Sleep
u Hydration
u Exercise
u Diet
I would encourage Leaders to create a conscious practice around these four elements of wellbeing and share their own experience with the team. By focussing on these areas that are within their control, Leaders will contribute to their own and their teams’ resilience levels.
Remember those days when we used to fly for work? What did we hear in the safety announcements? Put your own oxygen mask on first.
The way you Lead your own Health will directly impact the quality of the decisions you make at this time. Use it as an opportunity to create a better and healthier you.
LEADING IN HEALTH
HISTORY
CREATE
The final practice of Leading Through Uncertain Times is Creating History.
Whilst you will be forgiven and maybe even applauded for making genuine and honest mistakes, you will be remembered by your people and your customers for how you treat them now.
You will have to make some tough choices – furloughing colleagues may have been emotionally draining, but many Leaders may have to restructure and lose colleagues in the coming weeks. Our advice would be to be transparent and share as much information as you can and accept that you won’t know all the answers. As Donald Rumsfeld famously said during the Iraq war:
“There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don't know we don't know."
As Leaders navigate a way through the pandemic, new challenges and opportunities will continually present themselves. We can see or anticipate some of these challenges and opportunities and others will present themselves to us, in all their complexity, for the very first time. As Leaders, you should be open and transparent about what you know and what you don’t know, whilst remaining open to new opportunities and solutions.
The way you respond to these challenges and opportunities will become your Leadership Legacy. We have all seen some incredible responses to the COVID-19 challenge. From Joe Wickes keeping us fit in the morning, to Mr Powles the Assistant Head Teacher who walks five miles a day to deliver a
packed lunch to his pupils; there have been amazing examples of Leaders in every walk of life Creating history.
Arne Sorenson, the CEO of Marriot Hotels, has shown incredible personal and professional strength as he leads his people thorough the current crisis. He has created a series of very personal videos, embodying the Stockdale Paradox, leading a business that has been decimated by the virus, whilst personally undergoing treatment for cancer.
A few key lessons from Sorenson’s videos are:
u Make it personal – be human; share your story and your experience. This is not the time to hide behind a job title or hierarchy
u Acknowledge those in your organisation who are working hard to keep the wheels turning
u Be open and honest about the state of the business – share your known knowns and known unknowns
u Share what steps you are taking to mitigate the current situation and when you will review
u Share good news
Remember to share the good news!
The Leaders role is not only to manage the business.
Your role now, more than ever, is to inspire and by doing so to give hope to your people that, together, you will successfully emerge together on the other side of COVID-19.
CREATEHISTORY
The truth is that there is no Leadership Playbook to help you through this pandemic. You may have activated your Business Continuity Plan, but my guess is that you never planned for a situation like this. Or for the volatility and shifting dynamics.
What your people and your customers need now will be different in a week and different in a month. Therefore, as a Leader you will be required to shift your focus away from a fixed solution mindset and move towards a more flexible position, adopting frameworks and new ways of thinking, to provide adaptive Leadership and changing solutions.
There are few certainties at the moment, but from what we can tell, this will be more of a marathon than a sprint. The world, certainly in the short term, will not return to business as usual. The impact of events such as 9/11 and the financial crash of 2008 reverberated for a prolonged period before we returned to business as usual.
Looking at what has guided Leaders through previous periods of uncertainty, we can see that a Roadmap has emerged and has been repeated throughout history – whether it be Spanish Flu or financial meltdown. It consists of 4 stages, each of which will require changing Leadership behaviours, actions capabilities. The four stages of this Roadmap for Uncertain Times are:
u Stabilise
u Sustain
u Return
u Renew
This framework provides Leaders with the momentum to lead through the current crisis, as opposed to fixating upon it. It highlights a way to navigate customer and employee expectations and concerns, and rebuild teams, business processes and respond to the new normal on the other side.
STAGE ONE - STABILISE
The key questions to answer at this stage are:
u What is happening?
u How do we continue to operate our business whilst this is happening?
Many Leaders and Organisations have come through this stage. It involved remote working, setting up IT systems and furloughing staff. Leaders had to look at new ways of procuring, maintaining the supply chain and responding to short term changes in consumer need by innovating business models and delivery options. Examples of such innovations have included clothing manufacturers making masks and scrubs for the NHS and the way such a significant percentage of the hospitality sector moved rapidly from in house dining to take out and delivery.
The overwhelming Leadership practice of Stabilise is Leading in Head – it involves process management, operational planning and financial modelling. It requires the implementation of Business Continuity Plans and crisis management skills, alongside an understanding of how technology can keep the workforce productive.
HOW TO LEAD FOR UNCERTAINTY
A ROADMAP FOR UNCERTAIN TIMES
STAGE TWO - SUSTAIN
The key questions to answer at this stage are:
u How do we keep working through this?
u What new problem solving skills do my people need?
u How do we continue to explore opportunities?
This second stage is where we are now – in lockdown but some of our workforce still working. We are familiar with virtual communication tools and have set in place structures for team meetings and check ins.
The Sustain stage is where ‘Marathon Mentality’ is required. Established ways of working have been adapted but Leaders must be prepared to continue to flex and change their Habits and re-invent new structures and processes.
This stage in the Roadmap for Uncertain Times requires everyone in the organisation to gain new skills and become an Innovator. Everyone needs to be more agile in their thinking - to prototype and test new ways of working, iterate continually and practice expansive rather than reductive thinking. The skills of the Innovator must become part of the core skill set of every employee, so they are able to adapt and create new solutions.
STAGE THREE - RETURN
The key questions to answer at this stage are:
u What does my customer need?
u How do I rebuild the supply chain?
u What does my organisation structure need to look like?
We do not know how long it will take for us to get to Return. And we may experience phased or stop/start Returns. We will Return to work, but we probably won’t return to business as usual, at least for the short term.
Consumer and employee expectations may have shifted. Leaders will be required to shift their business strategy to respond to pent up consumer demand, which is likely to be disproportionate across geography, depending on the local impact of COVID-19. This will require another skill from the innovator’s toolkit – Empathy. This is the ability to gather key insights into the need, pains and desires of consumers and employees. The ability to operationalise these insights, predict demand, construct a supply chain and manage the human resources to deliver, will require operational excellence and superb negotiation skills.
STABILISE
SUSTAIN RENEW
RETURN
CONCLUSION.IT IS HARD TO WRITE A CONCLUSION FOR A WHITE PAPER ON LEADING THROUGH UNCERTAINTY, WHEN WE ARE STILL EXPERIENCING THE PANDEMIC.
However, looking at what has emerged to date, we can make some assumptions about how things will be on the other side.
I believe that those Leaders and their people who rise to the COVID-19 challenge will adopt the skills of the Innovator. They will develop the ability to learn quickly, adapt and be more agile. They will develop more resilience and be more accommodating of the human elements of business. Working remotely has forced us all to see each others home décor, children and each other’s pets – the personal has become public. These new ways of working could support a more diverse workforce, and bring more inclusivity for those who have traditionally been overlooked or less visible. From an innovation perspective, we should welcome the cognitive diversity this will bring
Remember, that we are all on a marathon, not a sprint. I hope that The Roadmap Through Uncertainty provides a framework for you to navigate through these disrupted times.
Be Strong
Mok O’KeeffeApril 2020
It will also require Leaders to Lead in Health – once the euphoria of beating the virus has subsided, the psychological impact of isolation and the energy needed to innovate solutions to a new wave of currently unknown problems, will need resilience levels that could far outweigh what was required in Stage Two. The long-term mental health implications of COVID-19 will begin to emerge in Stage Three and their impact will truly be felt in the final Stage – Renew.
STAGE FOUR - RENEW
Key questions to answer at this stage are:
u How do I rebuild the collective spirit of my people?
u How do I leverage the digital capability I have built in my organisation?
Stage Four requires us to develop new ways of working. Leaders will need to Lead in Heart in order to bring the organisation together and align it behind a common purpose. A key skill here will be the ability to build a team that is goal orientated and focussed on the future. The Leader should spend time recognising the input and success the team achieved during COVID-19. Building upon this recognition of success, the Leader will need to inspire and embody confidence in the future, whilst dealing sympathetically with the emotional and financial impact of COVID-19. The way a Leader behaves towards those team members who have been adversely impacted by the virus, will write
their Leadership Legacy. They will have to balance the needs of the business against the needs of the individual and they will be judged in perpetuity on how they manage both.
The organisation that will thrive post COVID-19, will be the one that is able to build upon the new skills and opportunities that have emerged during the crisis. Individuals and teams who have adopted the key skills of innovation are demonstrating the ability to learn quickly and adapt. They are testing out new solutions, failing and trying again.
The pandemic has shone a spotlight on different ways of working, possibly opening up more opportunities for the remote or home worker. Smart Leaders could see this as an opportunity to attract more diverse talent to their workforce, which could contribute to more cognitive diversity and subsequent innovative thinking.
New ways of working have forced us all to rapidly adopt new technologies. This has been seen in the doubling in the number of people using Microsoft Teams and stock market valuation of Zoom. In Stage Four, Leaders will have a once in a lifetime opportunity to accelerate the organisation’s digital transformation as their stakeholders become more familiar with and accepting of technology. Leaders will also need to consider how investment in AI and other technology could deliver their current proposition and, in future, help mitigate some of the financial impact of another global crisis.
WHO WE ARE.
THE INNOVATION BEEHIVE IS A TEAM OF INNOVATORS, L&D EXPERTS AND HR PRACTITIONERS.
We are passionate about accelerating the potential of leaders and organisations to create organisational environments that deliver for their customers, employees, and shareholders.
Our work focuses on three core areas: Leadership, Innovation, and Culture. The experience of working across these macro themes has enabled us to develop a deep understanding of human motivation, Leadership effectiveness, and the drivers of personal and commercial growth. These learnings have all informed the creation of Leadership 4.0.
Our work delivers significant results on the metrics that matter to our clients. Whether focusing on improvements in employee or customer satisfaction, delivering product and service innovation to market more quickly, or developing solutions that improve revenue, our processes, frameworks, culture, and experience align to accelerate the potential of our clients.
Our Values
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