Immediate Priorities for CEOs and Their Leadership Teams

March 24, 2020

I received this supremely helpful guide from Bruce Eckfeldt. We will be using this to guide our planning and activities in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. I asked Bruce's permission to pass it along. I hope it's helpful for your team.

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The situation continues to change and develop and different parts of the US are facing different challenges. NYC appears to be hardest hit and will be facing the most impact in the near future. If you are in this area or have team members in this area, please plan accordingly. That said, every community will be impacted in the coming weeks and months.

Below are the general items I’m working with all of my CEO and leadership team clients on making sure they have in place now or will have in place quickly. If you we haven’t discussed one or more of these, please reach out to schedule a call ASAP.

1) Active priorities

Given the rapidly changing situations in most communities, teams are moving from a quarterly to a weekly planning cycle. The beginning of each week (or the end of the previous week), set 2-3 key business priorities for the next seven day. Each executive should set 2-3 individual/departmental priorities as well.

These should be the top areas of focus to stabilize the business, identify immediate risks and mitigation strategies, caring for your people, and communicating to stakeholders. As things play out the next few weeks, add strategic objectives based on your analysis of the next 6-12 months.

2) Weekly planning meetings

Your weekly meeting should be your core rhythm at this point. This will bring your leadership team together to assess and reflect on the current situation and set/update your active priorities. Focus on triaging any issues and what needs to happen in the next one to two weeks.

Good guidelines for this meeting are 90-120 mins and to focus on the following core agenda items. Don’t get bogged down in details, focus on clarifying and assigning tasks to executives to implement.

Weekly Meeting Agenda

- Top 2-3 updates from each executive

- Review/revise top 2-3 priorities for the company

- Issue processing (define, assign, discuss, decide, plan)

- Update working assumption and implications

- Review action plans and individual/departmental priorities

I recommend that a company communication go out after each one of these meetings letting all stakeholder know of any decisions and updates. I would also communicate out to clients and other partners as needed. Regular communication is key in times of uncertainty.

3) Issue list

There will be a lot of issues coming at you and your team. Focus on tracking, prioritizing, and process them quickly. Use a triage process to sort them in order of importance and urgency. Delegate/assign things quickly where ever possible.

Items that need to be discussed as a team, focus on getting an assignment first, then discuss what that person needs to complete effectively. Focus and drive to clear commitments and action plans and deadlines.

4) Working assumptions

Given the uncertain nature of the coming months, teams need to set working assumptions around what may happen with the economy, the market, your business, and communities in general. Discuss these as a team and make a decision on what parameters you will assume for decision making.

These should include what restrictions will be in place in which communities for what period of time, what will happen with capital markets, competitive responses, etc. For many of these you may need to develop a 20/50/80% probability estimates to work against.

5) Scenario planning

I’m recommending that all teams create a revised 2020 forecast that includes three scenarios against your current plan, these should include a 10%, 25% and 50% drop in revenue.

Have your finance lead develop an expense model for each of these scenarios and send out to the team. Each team/department lead should then create a plan for their functional area as to what what they need to do and decisions they would need to make under each scenario.

For each of these scenarios and decisions, identify a last responsible moment for implementing each plan. This is the timeframe that you must make a decision by for keeping the company in reasonable financial health.

6) Daily huddle

Your key teams, including your leadership team, should all be doing daily huddles at this point. If you’re not, start ASAP. Agenda is simply: 1) what got done yesterday, 2) what are you focused on today, 3) where are you stuck. These should be less than 15 minutes max.

I would add a starting section on any important news or updates to your assumption list as well. And I would use it as a chance to personally check in with your team on their situation and mental/physical health.

7) Communication system

Make sure that your team and your company has standardized its communication platforms and systems. I recommend video as much as possible and using a chat tool over email for immediate communications.

I also recommend a daily communication (email or slack or even video) from the CEO with updates and news to the entire company. Reinforce messages and priorities and remind people where they can find help and resources.

8) Continuity planning

It’s clear that many people will be effected by COVID-19. I’ve had one CEO and several leadership team members hospitalized at this point. Do not underestimate the impact and severity of this situation and be prepared.

For each member of your leadership team, including the CEO, have a least two people identified who can step into the role for at least two weeks should someone become incapacitated. Establish how the role will be handed over and communicated and share the plans with all of your key leaders and stakeholders.

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To contact Bruce, email: [email protected]