Three Pieces of Advice on Leading Through Uncertainty
Given the current economic picture, most leaders are confronted with a period of great uncertainty. But what does it take to ensure your business emerges stronger when good times return?
We recently hosted a series of client roundtables on 'leading through uncertainty'. Here are some observations and advice based on LinkedIn data, 3rd party research and experts in their field.
There are three primary lenses we looked through: People Leadership, Business Leadership & Marketing Leadership.
People Leadership:?
Resist the temptation to pull back on flexible work, L&D and wellbeing. Lean into these benefits, keep your employees engaged and you’ll come out stronger as a result.
To navigate uncertainty, employers need their best employees. Those who are aligned with their culture & values, understand their systems and have deep customer relationships.
Despite recent layoffs, it’s still a relatively tight labour market. Skilled talent has choice.
But because business leaders are having to take difficult decisions that impact employees, there’s increasingly a disconnect between what employers are offering and what employee want.
We surveyed 3000 Global C-Level Executives. 70% of leaders said they were concerned that the looming recession would force companies to undo progress on flexible working, learning & development and employee wellbeing.
We’ve already seen a significant drop in remote roles being offered on LinkedIn from H1 to H2 with demand for those jobs often at double the supply.
Yet when we surveyed employees, they said that after compensation, the most important aspects of a role were flexible working, learning & development and wellbeing.
Business Leadership:
You can pursue operational efficiencies, but not at the expense of investing in growth via R&D and marketing.
There’s plenty of research and recommendations out there on what strategies to employ during a downturn.?
领英推荐
I’m particularly keen on the HBR research from 2010 where they researched 4,700 public companies, breaking down the data into three periods: three years before a recession, three years after and the recessions themselves.
Firms that cut costs faster and deeper than rivals had the lowest probability of pulling ahead of the competition when good times returned – 21%.
Firms that heavily invested and made no cuts didn’t do much better – they were 26% more likely to pull ahead of the competition.
Companies that found a balance between operational efficiencies and investing for growth, notably in R&D and marketing, had a 37% chance of surpassing their competitors.
Marketing Leadership:
Resist the urge to cut marketing unless there is an existential threat to your business. The evidence is clear. Those that invest in marketing during a downturn come out stronger.
This advice comes from LinkedIn, Mark Ritson, Peter Field and a host of our clients.
Avoid a sudden pivot from brand to demand generation. Most of your company valuation is based on future returns and for B2B, only 5% of your buyers are in market for your products & services at any given time. A pivot to demand generation may temporarily increase sales but risks your mid to long term growth trajectory.
Maintain your Share of Voice above your Share of Market and increase it if it’s economically viable to do so. It often is given pricing could drop with a broader downturn.
Avoid pulling your live campaigns unless they are unsympathetic towards your audience. Why waste all the time, energy and investment that went into the strategy, planning and execution?
If you haven’t already, urgently invest in financial literacy for your marketing organisation. Where there’s an increased focus on driving cost efficiencies, help them translate marketing investments into a language that resonates with the CFO (cash flow, margin, profitable growth etc).
What else would you add to the above? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Helping individuals, teams and companies digitally transform and grow
2 年Ed Raine
Chief Operating Officer @ Latimer Hinks | Founder of HReSource | Podcaster |
2 年How about investing in customer support to ensure that responses to clients'/account holders' concerns are both timely and entirely appropriate? As a wise man once passed on to me during a recent podcast [ Evan Sohn ] - a trend starts with a single data point. Ignoring or failing customers at times like this will undermine efforts to build your brand but it's almost always an afterthought when companies think of marketing investment.