When your world flips - Vent, Pivot, Act.

If you’re like most leaders, you’re likely locked away in a vacant space, empty office or in your home contemplating what has happened over the last few months. And chances are, you don’t feel very good about it!  A short time ago, your year was filled with excitement and aspirations for the greatness ahead. Now, you’re trying to navigate what this all means, and the only access to your team is through a virtual connection.

The most common advice is to be positive, optimistic, and put on a happy face. Positivity is great, but sometimes you need to do a little venting first. That’s why I’m giving you permission to complain. That's right. I want you to be real and get things off your chest so you can get past them.

 Here is a simple, three-step process you can use during a virtual meeting to hit your team’s refresh button.

Step 1: Vent. Invite your team to let off steam. Discuss how bad, uncertain, frustrating, and confusing things appear to be. Talk about the momentum you had going into the year, and all the great plans you created, and how all those plans may now seem irrelevant. Make sure you discuss the impact this crisis is having on your internal and external customers, partners, and suppliers. Get it all out. Limit this part to no more than 15 minutes.

Step 2: Pivot. For the next 20 minutes, shift the discussion to focus on interpreting the situation. Review the changes the team has seen and the immediate decisions they’ve had to make during these times. Next, discuss which changes are temporary until you get through this, and most importantly, which might be permanent changes to the way your team operates going forward. Ask the same questions related to your customers, partners, and suppliers. Summarize the key themes and insights.

Step 3: Act. Using the themes and outputs from part 2, spend the remaining time discussing what actions you can take now to position yourselves to come out even stronger on the other side of the crisis. What help will your customers need in the future? How can you be there to help them in even more powerful ways? What new products, services, support, and insights can you provide? What proactive steps can you begin taking now to prepare yourself?

When you address negative emotions around change, you and your team will be in a much better position to make necessary changes efficiently and effectively.

Regardless of how robust your conversation is during this three-step process, I suggest scheduling a follow-up call to review. You may find additional powerful insights will be generated after giving your team more time to process the conversation. Use the time between your team sessions to check-in with your customers, partners, and suppliers for their insights.

If you choose to conduct this exercise with your team, I would love to hear about the impact it has. I also ask you to contribute to the learning of others by sharing your experiences. I will include your learnings in a follow-up article.