7 Tips on How to Lead Your Team During Crisis

1. Rhythm: Increase beats per minute.

Check in frequently. Stimulate the daily routines and make your team familiar with the “virtual start” every day. It is the “coming to the office” kind of way to start your workday. In the end we are very habitual creatures. Develop the right rhythms and change that cognitive pattern quickly. The faster you get used to and hold on to it, the stickier it becomes.

The meetings we initiated in crisis:

• New! Daily Leadership Checkin, 15 minutes
• New! Daily Virtual All-Hands, 10 minutes
• Virtual Success Meeting (see Succeeding), 30 minutes

The communication we initiated in crisis:

• Daily Culture Snack: written
• Founder Updates twice a week: written

Key takeaway: In an environment where the world faces an exponentially growing threat you better pace up and adapt meeting as well as communication rhythms!

2. Reporting: See and be seen.

I love my firm and I want to know what's up. I do all it takes for my firm and I have to know what's up. When Corona hit the fan it took me three days to switch from peacetime to wartime: 

First I stood still like a frozen grass stalk and kind of neglected what is happening out there. I was sitting in the saddest puppy face board meeting (quote!) ever and simply could not believe the exponential pace of this virus. Then I looked at the numbers and faded and cried. We have just surpassed a horrifying 2017, a super harsh 2018 and an aking, itchy 2019 and just started to really take off. Now this. For real?

We had a leadership meeting and I felt the urge to get daily reporting from bottom to top, every day. Every teamie reports every day to his/her lead superior. Every leader directly reports one level up. I have a written daily company report for every Corona crisis day now and I am so proud of the achievements we made. It helps me to see each teamie and value each teamie every day. It's important to me to make my team feel seen even if I cannot see them. It's important to me to make them feel valued when feeling valued in isolation gets a different meaning. Surely it also helps me get a micro view on progress, but first and foremost it helps me give macro appreciation for all my fighters out there.

Key takeaway: Establish the reporting structures (bottom to top transparency) needed to keep a close feeling of your firm's and team’s heartbeat!

3. Communicating: Be thanked for sharing.

Speak openly, frequently and with full transparency. There is nothing more disturbing in times of uncertainty than leaders who make you feel uncertain, leaders who do not make you feel safe. If you are adapting your rhythm you are just as well adapting your communication. The worst thing, again, is being an intransparent communicator now. And if you do not know yet, make them feel be part of that. Let them know you are thinking hard about a solution and you need more time. Let them know that things like budget cut decisions, short time and OKR adjustments are important to you, which is why you need a few more days (!) to think things through.

Key takeaway: Speak openly about uncertainty and vulnerability and communicate very frequently with your team.

4. Navigating: Make calls fast.

Navigating your team through crisis and wanting to set goals OKR-ing like we used to. This turned out not to work. It is not an easy one, because I was used to empowering , giving freedom, time for ideation etcetera. But in fact I am in the midst of scarcity, scarcity on demand, scarcity on ressources, scarcity on creating actual togetherness within the team to have personal discussions and decision making. So, does it feel like you have to make the call? Damn right, because it's time for you to make the final call. It's time for you to give direction and its expected from you now to be that “war time ceo” (quote: ben horowitz). When the new quarter turns out to be a week. When a week can be decisive for survival you need to make fast, guided decisions. We termed our Q2 OKRs MOKRs (Managed-OKRs). 

Key takeaway: Make fast calls now - your team will thank you for it. 

5. Feeling: Drop your pants!

No hard feelings is bullshit. If you are one of the leaders of a company who has obviously been hit by the crisis the only hard thing there is, is the degree to which you’ve been hit. When it is undeniable that you are struggling and fighting for survival and you need to motivate yourself and your team to work for survival, it is imperative that you share your feelings and vulnerability. Because yes you are vulnerable, you are worried, scared and tired. You are helpless watching your work from the past months and years flush down the toilet in days. And I can tell you your team feels just that way and a way to show them that you allow yourself to let those feelings out is such an authentic leadership characteristic that you can only win followers. In fact last time I cried during a meeting (not long ago) I received so many empowering messages (Quote: Resi we have to give 300% now!) that I immediately felt safe and taken care of.

Key takeaway: You feel like you’ve hit an emotional ground zero? Show some real strength and share this emotional capital.

6. Succeeding: High on highlights.

This might sound ambiguous. But in a world where things get tough and bad news go head over heels I have a holy grail for you and your firm: the Friday afternoon Success Meeting. 

This is another big one. When we ate shit the last time - we ate a whole bunch. We lost our dear customers, we lost 80% of our team, a lot of market participants (who now all died) tried to make us feel like losing our dignity. During that time I experienced the first feelings of a depression and was really a carved out wreck. I was fighting with a team of 6 after I had to let go 80% of the staff in 48 hours. I was fighting for weeks already and had some quite humiliating professional and private experiences. The one thing I did not want my team to end the week with was that feeling of helplessness and sadness. I wanted to end the week with a bit of hope and happiness so I decided that the last thing we do is have a sharing of 3 successes. We never let go of this meeting - it is a cultural artifact now.

Key takeaway: Let the last thing of the week, that you experience with your team be the sharing of successes.

7. Turning Point: Get ready for the next cri...

This one came to my mind when checking the etymology of the word crisis: “turning point in a disease, that change which indicates recovery or death”. I thought about this recovery (revived demand) for a minute. Time will come when demand surges again. Time will come again when you can make the market. So how are you preparing for this one, huh? Is it gonna hit you just like the virus did? Or are you gonna prepare this time and get ready for the try-outs of your life? Because those you end up seeing at the other side will for sure not want to do it like they used to, they will be so happy to have made it to now show the whole world where the hammer hangs! 

Key takeaway: While freezing costs now and staying agile on the solutions for now, get read the the recovery of tomorrow.

Disclaimer: This is just a glimpse. There are many other things we put in place but I am just trying to share what I hope helps most. I have been approached by many different founders now to give guidance on how we do it. We also put crisis principles in place. We have an chief activity officer every day whose job is to keep everyone motivated. We read to our children. We share our homes. We do virtual crossfit, have happy hours and a virtual coffee room. All of this would not be possible if we wouldn't religiously live by our values. If any of this is helping you or you would like to hear about something else in particular, please comment.