Harnessing the potential of people in a crisis

Maybe you are already there, or at least you are starting to see challenges being outlined following the disruption caused by Covid-19. Crises like this create an undoubtful pressure on all industries to refocus, possibly pivot strategies and for some, have a serious think about how to come out of this at all. Alumni leadership expert and psychologist Johan Östlin shares practical advice on what leaders can do to rally their teams and harness the positive attitudes that come out in people during a time of disruption.

As a leader you must keep your intellectual ability with you at all times. Stay nuanced to the information flow and remember that this is a new situation for all of us, give it the thought and reflection it needs. By setting up a clear and strict framework for your operations, you can catch yourself when falling into flock behaviour, and keep pace when stopping up completely looks tempting.

Be cautious of crisis mentality

You need to understand what happens to the group and individuals in crisis. Firstly, remember that emotional reactions become powerful and may overshadow logic. We have seen the very obvious example of flock behaviour in this current crisis through the toilet paper hoarding, a global phenomenon with seemingly no reason. Maybe the negative consequences of the toilet paper provisioning are minor, but if colleagues are aimlessly running towards ill-defined targets, you may have your valuable time locked into trying to steer a free-running herd, leaving little energy for critical actions.

The common reaction to a crisis among individuals is flight or fight. But the lesser mentioned third option is actually the most common one, freeze. Humans have survived many dangers by simply playing dead. Taking time to reflect before you act is a sensible idea, but the freeze act is not, especially for leaders. In times of crisis and great disruption, when you need to be productive and save a business, both the irrational flock behaviour and the paralyzing reaction block rational thinking and vital ability to act.

In order to even begin to coax your team out of initial instincts you need to create a sense of security. They more than ever need one leader to follow. They need to trust that the possibly unorthodox decisions you are about to make are the right ones, or at least as far as our current evidence leads us to believe. Don’t try and minimize the reactions or create distractions as that will only make co-workers think you don't see the urgency and they will trust your plans less and distance themselves from you. Keeping a cool mind and staying nuanced to the information flow will give you a better idea of the full picture. This so that you can better catch yourself when falling into flock behaviour.

Keep momentum and focus

As a leader you must set a clear and strict framework helping your team prioritize and act. Make sure you are all on the same page with what to do and how, alongside an evident “why”. What is the higher purpose of what you are doing? Add to this the don’ts so that your team members have a clear understanding of the things not to focus on. Formulate the overall challenge but stay very flexible to the solutions. As conditions change daily, sometimes even more often, you need to foster an agile attitude.

Take action

Make sure not to let yourself fall into the freeze mode. This is scary. For sure some of the decisions you make now will be less than optimal once we have all the facts at hand. But the risk in not doing anything at all out of fear, will probably be worse. Once decisions are made, communicate them in a clear plan that leaves few questions left to answer.

Utilize the energy a crisis brings

When pressed against a wall people develop powers that are well stored away from their usual day to day operations. A crisis will often make employees far more loyal towards the company, with a much more tangible shared enemy and challenge. This is of great value when looking for insights and getting everyone to walk that extra mile to turn a bad situation around. You will probably be surprised to see a far less prestigious team; a disruption will have us forget our usual pettiness. The energy and momentum created in disruption can make it easier to shift roles and tasks around, to reorganize or to replace your normal routines by distance working. Keep in mind this might apply to your own responsibilities, maybe there is someone else better suited in this situation?

Your actions today will lead the way to a long-term resilient team tomorrow

This is a time to create trust by trusting. Leverage the strong sense of team feeling and build on psychological safety to enable innovative solutions and high performance. And though it may seem far off now, the initial storm will succumb, and everyone will breathe a sigh of relief. As a leader, you job is to look beyond the horizon. Make sure to carry the learnings from this time forward and into rebuilding a stronger and more resilient team for the future.

We have written about the seven C:s you need, to create a resilient team - and we will certainly find a time when we should revisit this subject.