HOW TO? Deal with Crisis & Vision

You can read tons of ideas/concepts about crisis management and vision. I would like to share here some experiences to give you some items and streams to deal with this complex mix between managing a crisis and create a vision at the same time.

This post doesn't pretend to give you a full-action plan to create your vision but only an initial approach to start moving instead of being stuck

What does it mean to manage a crisis?

• depending on your activities and businesses but basically it consists to keep your flows working being impacted by new criterias/factors that you did not planned or anticipated.

• means to take care about People and adapt goals and processes to a new situation and context. If you don't care about people, you will lose all the power of your organisation, even if you consider that your processes can drive your company/community

What could be a good first step to deal with a crisis?

• Listen to your managers and colleagues to get their perceptions even if it is not exactly what YOU consider as truth or relevant. This phase is capital because it gives an opportunity to your team to destress and stop managing situations with their heart and emotions instead of their brain. Nothing about psychology, just real life.

• Then you should review your critical chain (incomes flows, supply chain, processes, security and safety including internal and external streams..) to be sure that your plan that has been built probably months or years ago, is still accurate.

• A basic step is to identify how the new context of this crisis will affect your critical chain.

• Then my experience showed me that, do not try to "repair" right away the critical chain and processes, you should organize a brainstorming with your key talented people to evaluate if the crisis gives you new options and opportunities. Not everything is about threat and disaster

• So right here you have a global understanding and vision about your current situation (team mood/attitude/availability/creativity, impacts on your traditional business in terms of incomes, processes and risks)

How to create a vision in this crisis situation?

• Sometimes there is nothing to do except apply the usual and defined processes and procedures that your organization has forgotten,

• but often your have to build up a new vision to adapt your plan to the new reality. So here I consider that the vision you have to create should be aligned and taking into consideration the DNA of your company.

• Don't try to build a too ambitious or disrupting vision while your team is experimenting difficulties and stress due to the crisis, especially if your company or community is not disruptive or creative by nature

• A lot of people talk about Vision as a big deal, I would prefer to create a new challenge or goal instead of vision. Why? all organizations have some "negative" members and they will for sure try to destroy your "vision" before it will exist, reinforced in their convictions due to the crisis they are living with

• As you want to anticipate and be fast moving, prepare a quick wins action plan to improve step by step the different impacts that you have identified in your critical chain. Don't try to solve everything in one single day, it will not happen and will probably make your team unconfident about your plan

• and more than everything spend enough time to make this new challenge accepted and shared within your entire community (internal & external). They have to feel on board and convinced, like this you can get from them the maximum commitment, creativity and focus that you need to be successful.

What could be the main driver of your plan?

• According to my experience (not a truth), I consider that the main driver should be your methodology: SIMPLEXITY.

• What Simplexity means? Basically try to consolidate all the COMPLEX items and streams of your situation, but keep the execution plan SIMPLE for your team (and yourself)

• This doesn't mean KISS (Keep is Simple and Stupid) which would be a big mistake

What are the key behaviours, attitude and focus that you should develop with your team?

Helpful, MeaningFul, Accessible, Human, Realistic, Monitorable, Motivation

I hope that this post will have offered you some new options and solutions in your specific situation