Fear is a Reaction — Courage is a Decision
By: Johanna Kriisa
Tags: Uncertainty, Strategy, Communication, Change Management, Leadership

Fear is a Reaction — Courage is a Decision

Josh Calabrese, Unsplash

Empathetic Leadership, Swerving like a Start-up and Accelerated Decision-Making:

Three Tips to Turn Your Business Learnings from 2020 into Insights for 2021 Strategy Setting

Everyone had their own personal pandemic experience and with the year end in view, it’s possible for businesses to gain perspective on the roller-coaster 2020 and bring key learnings to 2021 planning and strategy setting. While tech giants like Google, Facebook, Amazon and Tesla have rewritten the rules of disruptive business over the last 20 years, forcing other sectors to innovate at pace, Covid-19 has exponentially accelerated the trajectory that many companies were on. From adopting a new business model to digitalising sales channels, adapting the product or service offer or managing their workforce remotely, many businesses have ‘swerved’ like start-ups and in some cases pivoted dramatically. Equally, empathetic leadership has become vital to meaningfully engage and motivate employees and build more authentic connections to people.

Covid-19 has been a challenge for the economy, but has also created an opportunity for innovators to lead by example at a time of historical uncertainty. In the heat of the first wave of the crisis, the combination of fear and uncertainty and the need to make decisions more quickly under immense pressure, drove a pace of momentum that was a positive force for the organisation. Teams became agile as decision making needed to be taken faster and moved forward more quickly. To quote a leadership mantra Twitter@nikesharora “The cost of indecision is higher than the risk of a bad decision” and during the pandemic, this became self-evident to organisations across all sectors.

The disruption of the pandemic drove changes in corporate culture, communications, behaviour and decision-making that are valuable to keep. Priorities became sharper and storytelling more empathetic, helping humanise the brand and engage a much wider group of internal and external stakeholders. As the urgency of the initial waves of the crisis gives way to the long-tail management of a recovery and growth agenda, companies now have the challenge of managing their reputation under stress and re-building trust.

Moving forward which route is the right one to secure the businesses future? If some of the big business decisions during the early days of the pandemic were made from a place of urgency and fear — reactive — what does a strategy based on a choice to be deliberately courageous in decision-making on an ongoing basis mean for the shape of the business? What does a management style that proactively embraces the positive learnings look like — maintaining agility, a sense of purpose and the fearlessness to take quick and often bold decisions across leadership, product strategy, communications and employee engagement.

With a focus on business strategy and communications, we encourage organisations to think about these three questions:

1. Evaluate the Learnings from Your Crisis Experience

i. Honesty — What did your organisation do well and what did not work — Start to implement risk management and scenario planning

ii. Freedom of non-attachment — Keep speed of implementing, unlearning and re-inventing, accelerated cycle

iii. A broken-down hierarchy enabled innovation and collaboration –fluidity in job roles going forward

iv. Empathy — as workforces became remote, the most respected leaders communicated directly, prioritised people over corporate structures and showed a humanity that built loyalty. There is no going back to an ivory tower.

v. Trust is still the linchpin. To remain relevant and manage your reputation under stress it’s vital to deepen relationships with a broader circle of influence — how best to engage employees, customers, communities, consumers and partners.

2. Embrace the Change

i. Digitalisation of business models has been accelerated to warp speed. To secure access to customers, businesses have had to move online. This means that organisations face not only old but also new competition (e.g. Amazon). As the online channel grows it is being driven by smaller businesses. As customers have been forced online it is not only about convenience — it is now more about a habit. It takes between 18 and 254 days to create a new habit, or 66 days on average. The pandemic has lasted long enough for peoples’ habits to have changed permanently. This means that even small businesses or previously brick-and-mortar businesses can compete with the giants as customers are looking online not just for convenience and price — but for local and quality products. Having an online shopping experience that reflects this will be a must!

ii. Brick-and-mortar has a changing role and an opportunity to meet your customer. It plays a role as a shopping destination with experts or as a pick-up point for price sensitive customers. Meeting a Pavlovian need! Knowing your customer is key. With online shopping increasing you have a chance to create loyalty and know more about your customer and their preferences.

iii. The role of storytelling in connecting and humanising the brand is increasingly important. Your owned, earned and paid channels can drive news and digital engagement that builds credibility, trust and supports growth.

3. Leading through Uncertainty

i. Look forward — what are the major trends influencing your market in the coming months and years. Sustainability is here to stay, we will be driven by health and safety concerns in our daily life and coming economic uncertainty.

ii. Protect your brand — emerging from a period of social transformation, brand reputation will remain a priority alongside an increased responsibility to prioritise ESG issues — environment, social and governance. Protect your brand by being transparent and making sure that when you have made commitments there is no dissonance between your actions and words.

iii. Be more agile in the planning — long term vision with short term check-ins to alter and adapt to the changing environment. Look at having an innovation team that feeds information into the organisation.

iv. Employees are your most powerful advocates — opportunities exist and companies need to help employees continue to grow. We all fear change to a degree and in a world of remote working, it’s important to keep your employees onboard and support them personally and professionally on the journey of transformation. Managing and working remotely can be very different and providing resources, over-communicating and building a healthy culture of knowledge sharing can help employees remain motivated, healthy and productive to remain your best brand ambassadors going forward.

Co-authors Johanna Kriisa, Kriisa & Co and Danielle Leach, DG Strategic Communications