Leadership timing for a Post-COVID business

Timing. It may be the number one most important factor in business success. We have seen emerging, and quick-rising start-ups thrive due to timing. Airbnb and Uber launched amidst a season of recession where households were looking for supplemental income. Numerous tech start-ups spend gobs of money to depict the exact timing when their technology is on the consumer's wish list. For start-ups, the right timing will be the core variable in success or failure.

"My business is not a start-up," you may say.

Think again!

Whether your business is decades old or if you started last year, your business is about to enter a new season, and that season most closely resembles the start-up phase. Therefore, your timing is well worth analyzing as the most critical variable to relaunch post-COVID.

I recently read the famous quote associated with Wayne Gretzky that says, "Skate to where the puck is going, not where it has been." It carries more weight for every business leader who awakes with the same ponderings in the middle of the night. How are we to navigate a field that has no boundaries and, in many instances, has no rules of engagement.

The timing of your decisions is not just about anticipating the realities of a post-COVID business, as Gretzky's quote might suggest. Anticipatory timing has three elements that weave together: your past, your present, and your future.

As I have walked with leaders through this season, I have noticed the alarming nature of a reactive day. Leadership necessitates the time-sensitive critical elements while in crisis. It seems most all tasks have been in the important and super urgent bucket for the past month; however, we are starting to see through the fog.

Every leader must adapt to what has been a reactive, crisis leadership posture focused solely on the present to the next and more critical phase of the journey: Looking forward to starting over.

To start-up again, every leader has the core responsibility of surveying their organization's past. Connecting the dots within the peaks and valleys of an organization's history can bring great nuggets of truth about your businesses.

When doing so, do not just focus on the high points of perceived organizational successes. Those seasons carry weight, but often the strengths to replicate are shown amidst the adversity. If what does not kill us makes us stronger, then we need to be aware of what almost did.

The past holds the key to your future and the priorities that you presently must consider critical.

What is the common denominator about overcoming the valleys of your organization's past? For 9 out of ten of us, it is our people. I know it is cliché, but as you look back, notice the who not just the what.

Great leaders can go beyond the external factors and look towards the internal realities. The people that make up a business are the most critical variable in your past business and your near future start-up.

If your analysis leads you to this truth as well, yesterday was the day to start thinking about your start-up team. Most leaders have not been thinking about human capital amidst COVID-19, other than safety and displacement, which was warranted, but now is the time to consider how you are treating your team.

Many of our teams are displaced, and whether they come back to us amidst our Post-COVID start-up season will be the sole determination of whether we sustain or whether we close our doors.

The new psychological realities for most displaced employees are going to change the game of employment, post-COVID. When businesses start to thrive again, it is going to pick up for most of us. The employment market will be even more competitive than the two months ago.

If you are going to navigate your start-up season with the talent and the capacity that you will need, it is time to start re-recruiting now. The best way to show your employees you care about them is to empathize and connect. The way an employer treats its employees amidst this season will speak volumes about a company's cultural health. Cultural health is going to be vital to recruit and retain top talent post-COVID.

Your competition has become more worker-friendly. The emerging entities who employed so many displaced employees during this crisis will have their pick at top talent. Unless you are caring well for your displaced employees now, you will see them vanish when you need them back.

The displaced employee who feels cared for right now is going to be more likely to collect unemployment, enjoy this season with their family, and come back, refreshed, as soon as you need them.

The displaced employee who does not have clarity about their employment will not feel cared for. They will allow fear to drive their short term plan, and that will most likely lead them to a belief that you do not care about them. That belief will precipitate them seeking a greener pasture once you need them again.

If we do not get ahead of the problem presently, we will see a new crisis: Failed start-ups.

Right now, in the present moment, take action. Survey your organization's past and give merit to the backbone of your success. Anticipate well towards the future to restart with your top talent. Timing is everything for your business post-COVID.

We realize that many organizations do not have the capacity nor the skill set to care well for their employees while they are displaced. The Purpose Promise has developed the Displacement Employee Assistance Program (DEAP) to come alongside employers who are ready to embrace the future, presently.

We will support your displaced employees by working through their fears and helping them design a plan with a sound mind and a hope to come back to work when it is time. This assistance shows your employees you care about them now, and it dramatically increases the likelihood that they will be excited about returning to work with gusto post-COVID.

Check out www.purposepromise.org/covid19 to partner with you. Together, we can ensure the most critical aspects of your Post-COVID start-up will be in place. Don't miss the moment!