Top Ten Tips for Leading in Lockdown

Here we go again. Back to business via Zoom across Australia and particularly Sydney, Perth, NT and parts of Queensland with additional restrictions in almost all other regions.

Who knows how long this will last?

Fortunately, since the first wave the world has built up a powerful toolkit for responding proactively in such times.

Please find below ten of our favourite tips about leadership in times of uncertainty.

These tips are inspired by just a few of the global and national influencers plus executive members of our program designed to tenfold the impact of country leadership teams.

Amy Edmondson, Harvard Professor & best-selling author of The Fearless Organisation

1. Don’t panic but don’t delay – Global sage of psychological safety Amy Edmondson shared with us that now is not the time to slow down decision making out of fear of getting it wrong. Be decisive and be quick to move. Over index on decisions to ensure all your stakeholders are safe.

Give people the autonomy to make quick decisions too and let everyone know they won’t be punished if they need to course correct, which is inevitable in a rapid decision making environment.

Kim Scott, best-selling author of Radical Candor & Just Work

2. Check your assumptions before making decisions - Kim is a former executive at Apple, Google, Twitter and became famous for her work about radical candor, i.e. creating a culture that balances care and challenge.?Her second book Just Work addresses some of the challenges radical candor revealed.?In April Kim shared with us how we need to create environments free of bias, prejudice and harassment so people can ‘just work and get sh#t done’.?

Lockdown can rear the ugly head of bias and prejudice.?Involve people with diverse backgrounds and situations in your decisions and communications to make sure you are not overlooking how this lockdown is impacting your entire workforce. As one our CEO members said “Act compassionately. Don't assume your experience is like everyone else’s. It most certainly isn't.”

Margaret Heffernan, University of Bath Professor School of Management & best-selling author of Uncharted

3. Focus on effectiveness not efficiency – Five time tech CEO, entrepreneur and Professor Margaret Heffernan’s most recent book focused entirely on leading in uncharted times. One of her key insights was for organisations to stop prioritizing efficiency over effectiveness.

Leaders right now should be asking what is the effective thing to do to ensure confidence and continuation of our service to the market and the safety of our people? Now is not the time to be ‘saving to succeed’.

Julian Birkinshaw, London Business School Professor of Strategy & Entrepreneurship & prolific author

4. Start scenario planning – Julian has spent his career studying and advising the world’s most successful multinational companies.?He and Margaret (above) both agree that in times of uncertainty like now preparing for multiple potential scenarios is key.?

What will you do if this lockdown goes nationwide, what if it is extended beyond July 9, what if the numbers go down quicker than expected and it finishes this Friday? At the very least map out the best, worst and middle case scenarios and start preparations for each.

Patty McCord, former Chief Talent Officer at Netflix and author of Powerful

5. Treat your employees like adults and trust them to do the right thing – When Patty built Netflix with Reed Hastings over its first 14 years one of her key priorities was to ensure there were minimal policies and procedures.?At Netflix people were trusted to do the right thing, and in almost all cases they did.?

Lockdown is a great opportunity to show your people you trust them by giving them the freedom and responsibility to do their job.???????????

The Hon. Malcolm Turnbull, 29th Prime Minister of Australia

6. Talk and walk - Malcolm joined us back in October for his first in-person public address following the release of his autobiography.?He was incredibly candid about his battle with depression and emphasized two things relevant to managing our mental health during lockdown.?

Firstly, how important it is to talk about how you are doing, not just what you are doing.?Make time in your conversations for both feelings and facts.?

Secondly, how important exercise is. Malcolm jumped in his kayak regularly when battling his demons and found the solace and sun with exercise enormously beneficial.

Nir Eyal, best-selling author of Hooked & Indistractability

7. Get hooked on being indistractable - Nir taught at Stanford University and wrote the tech start-up bible Hooked about how to build habit forming products.?His second book Indistractability was in some ways an antidote to the success of Hooked.?It focuses on the power of focus and controlling your attention.?

Tip one from Nir is to turn off the ‘pings’ and ‘dings’ of technology. Tip two is to time box your calendar.?Block out time for deep work without distraction, as well as exercise, eating, family and less intense work activities.?

Related to this know when to switch off. Work from home doesn’t mean work all the time.

Lindsay McGregor, CEO of VegaFactor and best-selling author of Primed to Perform

8. Press PLAY - Lindsay’s ‘Total Motivation’ (a.k.a. ToMo) research is ground breaking.?In February this year she shared with us how the 3Ps are key to ensuring ToMo but not in equal measure.?“PLAY is 2x more powerful than PURPOSE which is 3x more powerful than POTENTIAL” to employee motivation.?

Play doesn’t mean ping pong tables and games at work. Play is all about curiosity and experimentation.?Lockdown is a great time to experiment with new ways of working.?For example our team just did a full day hackathon on a challenge that we had never made a priority to solve.?One day later it has been fixed.

Aminata Conteh-Biger – founder of The Aminata Maternal Foundation & author or Rising Heart

9. Focus on what you can control - Amii knows too much about adversity.?Born in Sierra Leone she was abducted and held captive by rebels, but before escaping experienced the unimaginable.?She now lives in Australia and is one of the most inspirational humans you will ever meet.?Amii leads one of the not-for-profits in the Tenfold community.?Every multinational company we support nominates an NFP to receive our services for free.?

For Amii, COVID has reinforced that “all we have is now and so much is out of our control.?However, we can control our thoughts and actions.?There is an opportunity to make something of every setback.”?As shared in one of our CXO Pods, restrictions are a great opportunity to find time for reflection.

Multinational CEOs from the Tenfold Community

10. Overcommunicate - A consistent strategy we have heard from too many CEOs to count is to ramp up the frequency and humanity of communications.?For example instead of one weekly meeting for an hour, start every day with a 15 minute call.?Don’t just talk about work.?Talk about how you and your family are going and give others space to talk about their personal situations, if they want to.?

Use different formats for communications too.?Now might be a great time to experiment (a la play) with new channels like Facebook Workplace, Instagram or other mediums your people use outside of work.

Conclusion

We hope these tips have reinforced some existing ideas or introduced you to some new ones.?We’d love to hear your thoughts as well in the comments section below.?

Now is a critical time to share learnings and open-source solutions to the common challenges we face, so we can spend more time on the ways our organisations create unique value.?As McKinsey highlighted in an article titled The CEO Moment now is a critical time to invest in peer networks.?

There are many great options out there from industry groups to chambers to think tanks and others like us at Tenfold Australia. We are Australia’s only peer network focused on the unique challenges and opportunities multinational country leadership teams face everyday.?

If you are a member of the top local team of a global company with operations in Australia & New Zealand we’d welcome the opportunity to support you by accessing the collective wisdom and relationships of the 120+ organisations and global thought leaders in our community. Feel free to direct message me on LinkedIn.

Our best to you.