Leading in the Age of COVID-19

Back in March, when the world began practicing social distancing as a precautionary measure, I could not have imagined that we would be starting April with such a high number of COVID-19 cases, deaths, and executive stay-at-home orders now in place around the globe. While we witness the tragedy of this pandemic unfold before us, we’ve also seen incredible displays of togetherness, kindness and gratitude. I will not soon forget the images of people across Europe standing on balconies cheering in unison for healthcare workers or my feelings of admiration as I watched the U.S. Naval hospital ships arrive in New York and Los Angeles to help an already overtaxed hospital system.  From every corner of the globe we hear stories each day of unsung heroes selflessly helping others, and I am reminded of the resiliency of our communities.

These are unprecedented times, and the situation is changing daily. At Synchronoss, we activated our business continuityand crisis management plans last month but the everchanging dynamics and scope of the pandemic are causing us to rewrite our plans on the fly. I have been meeting with my leadership team daily, with every meeting focused on keeping our people and business healthy. During a recent call discussing such matters, one of our team members read a text message he received in real-time from his daughter, a young nurse working just outside of Philadelphia, about one of her elderly patients who had been hoping to make it home for her granddaughter’s 3rd birthday but sadly passed away from COVID-19.  As I digested the news, I was reminded of the importance of putting people first. How a leader prioritizes the many business and human issues during a crisis like this, can make all the difference in how their people and business moves forward. I have to look no further than our guiding principles of People, Purpose, and Passion for helping sort through these challenges.

People. People are companies’ most important assets – therefore, you must stay in touch with your team and share a unified message across the organization. A consistent flow of communication that is informative, timely and transparent helps mitigate anxiety and lets employees know that you have a plan for managing through the crisis. I recently held a virtual, global town hall spanning multiple time zones so that our full leadership team could have frank conversations about the opportunities and challenges we are working through as a company. We left plenty of time for Q&A so voices could be heard. I ended the call abundantly proud of our employees as they demonstrated resiliency to prevail, compassion for the global community, and their commitment to the business. Their resolve to work through this crisis as a team and together is truly motivating. 

Purpose. In the face of crisis, purpose can hold wide-spanning meaning. As a company, our purpose is to provide products and platforms to power our TMT customers and partners who are counting on us each and every day. Our employees come to work each day to deliver against their objectives and do their part to make the company successful despite the issues we are facing. Now, in the age of COVID-19, our individual purposes are expanding far beyond our offices and job titles. Many employees have become overnight educators, teaching kids at home via e-learning, becoming a primary caretaker of elderly parents, and being a source of refuge and support for colleagues. My thoughts are with the many working parents who have young, rambunctious children wanting to go outside, or parents with older kids needing to console the loss of attending prom or walking across the graduation stage. Again, I am proud of the many examples of our employees rising to the occasion to discover their newly founded purpose and executing on them these past few weeks. 

Passion. One silver inning of crisis is the inevitable goodwill and innovation that it will produce. People helping people by coming together to find solutions to the challenges we are facing. The stories of the heroic health care professionals, truck drivers, postal workers, etc., rising to the occasion, risking their own lives to care for the sick and support their communities are inspiring. Individuals, corporations and brands coming together to produce scarce protective gear and ventilators is an example of supply-chain at its finest. Today, we must apply our passions for bettering the lives of our families, neighbors, and colleagues. 

This unfortunate crisis will eventually settle, and lessons will be learned, but for now, we must endure and prosper together by focusing on each other, finding where our purpose lies in the bigger picture, and applying that amazing passion to for helping advance and coming out stronger on the other side.