Leading & Learning During Coronavirus, A CEO’s Reflections (Part II)

Earlier this week, in Part I of this series, I shared a few reflections on leading during the early days of this global pandemic. We explored two employee centric lessons: communicating with empathy and creating space for your team to step-up.

As a leadership team, every decision we’ve made over the last six+ weeks has been through the lens of supporting those we serve: our partners, customers, employees and communities. We understand the decisions we make today can (and will) greatly influence our collective tomorrow. And while there is no playbook for navigating the complexity of this situation, we continue to reflect and learn as we build a future full of possibilities.

As we look forward, I continue to consider the leadership lessons that are guiding us, including:

1. Act Decisively and Do What’s Right
2. Never Lose Sight of Tomorrow

Act Decisively and Do What’s Right

Within our leadership team, we have a mantra: “Decide and Deliver.” We’ve made every decision through the lens of doing what is right – not what is easy. While it has long been a moral and cultural foundation of how we approach every relationship, it has taken on new meaning these last few weeks.

That is not to say we don’t evolve our decisions. In fact, as an Agile organization, we regularly update our thinking. In times like this, we can’t fall victim to rigidity and perfection. As Wayne Gretzky famously said, "You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take."

In recent days, we’ve made decisions quickly and decisively. We’ve accomplished in days, what in years past, may have taken months. For example:

• Historically, the majority of our contact center employees (our associates) have worked in-office. While we moved our non-contact center employees to work-from-home early in the pandemic, we did not have the infrastructure to support the same for our associates. So, we built that capability – in just two weeks. With special thanks to many leaders and team members we have more than 8,000 associates across the globe who are now safely working at home.
• Understanding our communities needed us now more than ever, one of the first decisions we made was to commit $5 million to support organizations working to meet the short and long-term needs of those most impacted by the Coronavirus.
• Similarly, as a company known for its relationships, we decided very early to help mobilize our employees and customers to create personal protective equipment (PPE). Knowing we’re better together, we created and launched #GearUp in just under a week. Now, we’re hearing inspiring stories of how others are stepping up to do what’s right to help our medical professionals. 

Never Lose Sight of Tomorrow

We’ve divided our leadership team into two task forces: one focused on operations today and the other looking forward to when we emerge on the other side. Understanding – and creating early alignment – around short-, medium- and long-term thinking is crucial for keeping the business running today and planning for tomorrow. We know that continually prioritizing (and reprioritizing) will fuel our ability to succeed in the days ahead.

Equally, this Agile mentality helps us better support our partners and customers. Many are small and medium sized enterprises – from jewelers to dentists to auto repair shops - who will need extra assistance to jumpstart, or even rebuild, their business. We are resolved to help deliver a future that embraces retail reinvention. For nearly 90 years, Synchrony has worked alongside our partners in good times and hard. Our business is to be here for them. We won’t lose sight of that.

A Closing Reflection: Gratitude

Arguably the most pressing lesson of these last few weeks is the power of two words: thank you. I continue to search for a more profound way to articulate my appreciation for all our employees, partners and vendors are doing. But I think that’s kind of the point. Gratitude doesn’t need to be grand. A phone call, email or text goes a long way. I’ve held myself accountable to making a few calls a day to our teams around the world. I want them to know their efforts and sacrifices are seen, felt and so very appreciated by me, our leadership team and every member of our Synchrony family.

As I reflect on our “new normal” and the role all of us play in safeguarding our future, I keep coming back to Synchrony’s origins, being founded in the middle of the Great Depression. Like then, our global community will continue to come together, demonstrating the resilience of the human spirit. As a business, as leaders, colleagues, friends and family, we’ll continue to listen, learn and grow.