Even the strongest, most determined amongst us have probably been a little floored by the coronavirus. Who would have thought that just a week after my last post schools would be closed, pubs & restaurants would be closed and we’d be all self-isolating with most of us working from home. Normal life as we know it has changed.
To quote a saying from a popular TV program – “we are where we are.”
As a small business leader, I now have several jobs.
I need to organise my response to this change; what does it mean to my business? Am I in crisis mode or do I have an opportunity to seize an advantage? The business reality has changed, I need to grasp that quickly and adapt.
I need to understand others; how does the change makes others around me feel? How connected am I to my customers/clients, my team, my suppliers? How do I reassure them? My ability to help people feel more positive and resilient will be key at this time. People need to feel confident and more in control when uncertainty is around.
I must focus on the right thing; what decisions I make and how I make them will be important. Now is a time to be calm, assured and slightly optimistic. Focus on the positive things you can do to adapt to the change. Take a little control back from the uncertainty.
Keep people connected; We are stronger together. I need to work hard on keeping everyone in my resilient bubble. How can we work together to recover from the change as quickly as possible? How do we support each other.
Most of all I must be resilient.
The definition of resilience
1. the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties, toughness.
2. the ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape; elasticity.
So how is your resilience?
My dad always used to say “Why worry? 95% of what you worry about isn’t going to happen. The other 5% is going to happen anyway, so rather than focusing all your effort on talking about it happening use your NRG (energy) to plan how to react and work your way out of the worry.”
So, what can you do to build you, your teams and your business resilience? How are you going to bounce back, recover from the temporary setback? Let’s keep connected, share each other’s success stories
More on resilience can be found here.
Leadership is key at this time. This article from Mckinsey is a good read.
