Leadership in a Time of Crisis — Q & A on Breakthrough Leadership

Speaker 1:

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Craig Anderson:

Hi, welcome to Q&A on Breakthrough Leadership. I'm Craig Anderson.

Lou Quinto:

And I'm Lou Quinto.

Craig Anderson:

Today, Lou and I are going to be talking about leadership in times of crisis. We started out several months ago talking about leadership challenges during COVID-19, thinking it was something we'd talk about for a few weeks, maybe a month. And here we are several months later, still talking about it, and it's really putting a lot of tests on leaders. And today what we want to talk about is what this has really meant for leaders in this time of crisis, around things like historically worrying about innovation and driving revenue and gaining share. But now there's so many different decisions that leaders have to focus on, and they have to make their moves much more quickly, thinking about stability, health of employees, different issues with supply chain that they didn't even see coming.

Craig Anderson:

So today what we want to do is talk about three topics in the area of how leaders are dealing in this time of crisis. The first is make decisions quickly and avoid perfection. The second is to adapt with confidence, and the third is training their team members for crisis leadership, because it's not just at the top that they have to deal with this. It's through the organization. So Lou, why don't you kick us off, and let's talk about making decisions quickly and avoiding perfection.

Lou Quinto:

Yeah, we've, Craig, you and I have covered this on several episodes, where we've talked about decision making, and the biggest problem with decision making is analysis paralysis, and also fear. People are fearful of making decisions. Crisis situation, leaders really need to be able to start making decisions quickly. And when I say quickly, I'm talking about taking the information that they have, and I know there's lots of information out there and we all want to hedge our bets and wait for more information, but that's not going to happen, and to be able to really apply some good qualitative, critical thinking skills in order to make quick decisions, I always like to say that there's a ratio between the amount of time you spend on a decision and the accuracy. The more time you spend, the more accurate it's going to be. The less time you spend, the less accurate it's going to be. But that is in a normal world, where people don't have a process to make a decision, where they're just going into the decision making mode and they are not using a good critical thinking process.

Lou Quinto:

One of the first things I always tell people is that when it comes to decision making, in order to make a fast decision, first of all, you're going to look at all of your information that you're going to have. But prior to that, you need to develop what your criteria is going to be. And I always like to tell people there's two types of criteria. There's eliminating criteria, and then there's what we call judgmental criteria. If you focus on the eliminating criteria, what I like to refer to as the must, if I'm going to choose between alternatives and need to make a quick decision, I'm going to come up with a list of the things that the alternative has to have. These are a must. If they don't have it, the alternative goes away, and it begins to reduce the amount of alternatives that I'm actually looking at, which ends up saving me time, because I'm not looking further into something that does not meet what I'm talking about as non-negotiable.

Lou Quinto:

I'll give you a perfect example. Craig, you've been in this situation, I was in a situation, where I had to go pick out an engagement ring. And when you go and you stand there at the jeweler, there's all of these rings. Price obviously is one. So you just give the price limit, and all of a sudden those that are outside of your price limit, they go away. And then the jeweler, they'll ask what kind of cut of stone. She doesn't like anything that snags on something. The jeweler will say, "Okay, well, we're going to get rid of the marquise cuts. We're going to get rid of the pearl cuts. We're going to get rid of some of the heart shaped cuts." And so now all of a sudden, my alternatives start to decrease.

Lou Quinto:

So in making a quick decision, I always like to tell people, is before you even start thinking about that judgmental criteria, what you're going to measure your alternative are, come up with your eliminating criteria. And when you do, you will find that you will make decisions a lot quicker, because your alternatives shrink, because you focused on one thing. What is nonnegotiable, and does this alternative have all of the things that I've said are non-negotiable? If not, I don't consider it any further. So we reduce everything.

Craig Anderson:

Yeah. Along with that, a lot of what I talk to my clients about is really the clear importance of being clear on your mission and your vision for your organization. And a lot of times people think, "Oh, a mission and vision is just fluff that we put up there. It's not important," but the way I define, especially vision, is what are we trying to build? How are we going to build it? And when you can be really clear on what those things are, the analysis paralysis isn't as bad because you know exactly what your guiding principles are. What are the things that you're always going to do, because that's how we do business.

Craig Anderson:

And where you can get very clear on that, that defines your priorities, that defines how you're going to do things, and that helps you get clear, because as you've noted, lots and lots of information is coming at you. You're having to make decisions right now so quickly on kind of shifting sand. It could change tomorrow. It could change this afternoon. And for leaders, that means you have to make the decisions you have to make with the information you have. And you may have to be prepared to change that decision and not kind of put up that wall of saying, "Well, I've made that decision, and that decision is our final one." You're going to have to learn how to be flexible, both decide quickly, but also be willing to change quickly as the circumstances change.

Lou Quinto:

Well, Craig, that is with any type of decisions. Circumstances change. You make a decision last week, and next week the circumstances have completely changed. A vendor drops out of sight or can't meet your deadlines or your dates. When you made the decision, that vendor could meet those needs. And so I always like to tell people, static thinking is probably one of the biggest things that hurt us, is that we think everything's going to be the same. It's not. You can make a great decision today, and six months later, circumstances will change. And what we're going to find is that it was a horrible decision, based upon the information I know today versus the information that I had available to me when I actually made the decision.

Lou Quinto:

But as you said, Craig, and you're absolutely right, it's like making a decision in quicksand. It's constantly changing. I mean, day to day, week to week, month to month, everything is changing. It's a comfort level that people need to have, that I'm going to make this decision with the information I have and I'm going to move forward, and I'm going to put that fear that I have in the back. And I can't worry about it, because we all know every decision that we make is not a hundred percent perfect. We have to go back and fix what we broke so many times, and we have to juggle some things around in order to make a decision that we made, make it doable.

Lou Quinto:

It leads right into our next point, which is to be able to adapt with confidence. And when it comes to adapting with confidence, for a leader in a time of crisis, I need to, first of all, decide what not to do, because there's so many things you can do. And in order to adapt and be confident with that adaptation of that decision that you made, or that plan that you put out, it's almost like the eliminating criteria and the judgmental criteria. You can eliminate and move quickly by being able to define what is it we are not going to do, and come up with maybe the top four or five things that you are not going to do, and communicate that with the team so that the team knows, no, that's off the table, we're not going to do that, so that they can spend and focus with confidence on those areas that they need to adapt to very quickly.

Craig Anderson:

Right. And you know, I've seen a lot of comments out there saying, "Well, you've got to throw out the old playbook. Everything's different. The whole world's changed," which is such a consultant mindset, right? I've done a lot of work.

Lou Quinto:

Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. Some of us take that personally.

Craig Anderson:

I know. I should, too. Career limiting move, in retrospect. However, what you really need to think about, in my time working with Fortune 500 companies, we never threw out the whole playbook. The smart play is look at the playbook. What is still true? If there are certain things in that playbook that are still true, that are still working, let's do that. What are the things in the playbook that, with a few tweaks, are going to be very relevant for us in the new organization? And you can start making those adjustments. Then you have to say, which of these things are no longer relevant, and what new things do we have to be thinking about if we're going to execute successfully moving forward?

Craig Anderson:

So it's this idea of, look, I may not hit the number I thought I was going to hit this year, but what can I do within my playbook to keep things that are working, adjust things that can work, and build in the new thing so I can start to bend that curve back up as close as I can to the number I thought I would hit?

Lou Quinto:

The only advice I would give there is be very careful of falling back into the mode of, well, that's the way we've always done it, because that's static thinking, and the way we've always done it is not going to be the way we do things moving forward. But again, it goes back to taking the learnings, as you said, the skills that have been developed, the team members with their qualifications and their experience, and not throwing them out as part of the playbook, but to be able to take them. And going back to an episode that we did on agile leadership, is being able to look very quickly at your resources and being able to make those direct connections with those team members that have those abilities to be able to do things because of the experience they have, the relationships they may have with the channels, the trade, with the sales force, with the marketing group, and be able to use them so that you can adapt in this particular time of crisis to be able to truly do it very confidently, because you're putting the project or you're putting the task in the hands of that individual who has the ability to take it.

Lou Quinto:

So I agree with you. Don't throw away the playbook, but it's time to look at ye olde parchment, if you want to call the playbook that. And let's go back and let's update it, let's revise it, because with everything that we're doing, technology in the last three months of this COVID, the use of technology that we're using in business, has just exponentially increased, where in that old playbook, it's outdated.

Craig Anderson:

Right. Yep.

Lou Quinto:

But I won't throw my playbook away, because I don't want to get you upset.

Craig Anderson:

Yeah, well, it's important to, you know, you always want to look at what it is you're doing and if it's still relevant. And the funny thing we found is, we thought there were certain things we could never do remotely. Clearly we can do a lot more remotely than we thought. So before you throw out the playbook, take a good hard look at what's going to work. I think that is my ultimate advice. But we've seen a lot of changes, and things are moving pretty quick, which is another piece of what we wanted to talk about here, it leads into it, is it's not just you as the leader. How do you get the rest of the team trained up to be leaders in times of crisis, to think about what am I going to change, but how do I enable my team to change, as well? So what are some good ideas for trying to get your team ready to become leaders in times of crisis, as well?

Lou Quinto:

Well, first, in this particular time, we've got a unique opportunity to be able to upskill people very quickly. With the onset of now webinar training being so much more popular, because in person training is gone, gone are the one day classes or the two day classes, where someone would go there. There'd be someone like myself, who has been delivering in front of groups for almost 30 years. I've had to adapt, and I've had to take all of my programs and reduce them down into a two hour to a two and a half hour maximum training program. So this is a great opportunity to really be able to take those leaders that you know have the potential, that you are confident that they can be good leaders in this time of crisis, and you need to do a quick succession plan analysis on them and say, "Okay, what are their deficiencies? Where can they improve?"

Lou Quinto:

And then to be able to go to a, I'll call it a trusted partner, that you can go to and say, "Here are the topics that my future leaders, our current leaders need to be upskilled on very quickly," and let that trusted partner develop a curriculum of a series of webinars that you can then take and let them sit through to be able to start to get the confidence, and also you're telling them that "I trust you, I'm making an investment in you, and you're valuable to me."

Lou Quinto:

And so with that, it's going to be that intrinsic type of motivation that they're going to learn, as opposed to sitting in the class, going through a typical training program. Let's reduce it, an hour, 90 minutes, two hours, and come up with a curriculum. It's more cost effective. And when you put a priority on it, we've done this, talked about this in another episode, as well, putting a priority, not just on productivity goals, but on development goals, it's really going to place an emphasis that they're going to get it. So that's where, when it comes to training members for crisis, that's where I would say we could start.

Craig Anderson:

Absolutely. And I think the other piece that you can look at is for those people we've identified who are really kind of shining and their leadership skills are coming to fore, what can we do from a coaching perspective to get them up and running? And maybe it's a more short intensive, because things may be moving a little fast right now, but we can get them in and say, "Hey, what's a goal, one thing we want this person to work on?" or "What are the one or two things we really need to get polished up for them?" And then identify those, bring in the coaches to come in and work with them on those specific items. Maybe it's not a six or 12 month engagement, although those are great for both us and of course for the client, but to really focus on that one specific thing that we really want them to work on that they may be struggling with in an otherwise shining moment.

Craig Anderson:

Let's really dig into that. Let's get focused on that. Let's get six sessions out over a couple of months, really get focused. And then we can always do the more traditional, longer engagement after that. But let's focus on the thing that we need to develop in them quickly, because what we really want is them to be able to perform at a high level. And it could be even some of the things we've talked about is, you know, what do we need to enable them to make quicker decisions? What holds them up from wanting to make a quick decision? Let's focus on that. Let's focus on whatever that is, that fear, is it some prior experience? Let's focus through that, help them develop new skills, and move them forward. So I think there's a real opportunity here to kind of spread it out. I actually know one company that is actually opening up coaching doors to all their employees, because they know their employees are struggling so much. So they've actually created windows through a series of coaches, where they can just sign up to work through an issue in one session, or maybe it's a few sessions.

Craig Anderson:

So the smart company is saying, what can I do, since I don't have the ability to pull them in to do a bunch of stuff that I used to do? What can I do now to help build them up and help them develop either improved skills or coping mechanisms or whatever it might be so they can continue to perform at a high level?

Lou Quinto:

Yeah. And in a crisis situation, as a leader, it takes something off of your plate that you don't need to deal with. You're letting development, you're letting coaching go to somebody. You let somebody else do it. And you are just focusing or identifying the need that that coaching or that development needs to take place.

Craig Anderson:

Absolutely.

Lou Quinto:

So Craig, when it comes to leadership in times of crisis, what are your key takeaways from today's episode?

Craig Anderson:

I think my key takeaway is we really need to work on getting decisions made, getting decisions executed quickly, and find a way to enable people to make those decisions. Find a way to push those decisions down to the next level of your leaders, by enabling them and coaching them up, and realize we're going to have to move more quickly. It's a little dangerous to move quickly. It sounds great all the time. So you have to be, if I can, intentional about how you're going to set up those parameters. So really setting the priorities, and things you talked about like excluding criteria, or just being really clear on what the priorities are for the organization and what the mission of vision is. Then people have a framework for making those decisions in a quick manner.

Lou Quinto:

Yeah. My key takeaway goes back to the decision making. Everybody is fearful of making decisions, and particularly in a time of crisis, because your chance of making a wrong decision is increased, because things are constantly changing. You've got to put that fear away and you've got to go back to this is the data I have right now, and you've got to avoid the I'm going to be perfect. If you can get rid of that attitude of, I want it to be perfect, you will start making quicker decisions using the information that you have, making connections with people who are actually in the trenches, that have the data that you need. So making those connections with individuals is going to be quite important. And then the last part is in coming up with your criteria, that eliminating criteria speeds up your decision making.

Lou Quinto:

All right, Craig, great discussion on leadership in times of crisis. If you've enjoyed this episode, please go ahead and click on the like button, subscribe, share it with individuals who you believe need some good leadership skills in this particular time of crisis we're going through. In addition to that, don't forget that Q&A on Breakthrough Leadership is available in a podcast format. So go to your favorite podcast platform and look for Q&A leadership, and download it, and take it with you when you're walking the dog, exercising, driving to work, riding your bicycle, whatever it may be. So until next time, keep your hands washed and keep your distance. I'm Lou Quinto.

Craig Anderson:

And I'm Craig Anderson.