Founder and CEO Thiru Thangarathinam represented MST Solutions and spoke at the Arizona Small Business Boot Camp & Collective event. Respond - Plan - Return Stronger.
2. Agenda
• Core Values & Purpose
• Key Leadership Perspectives
• Building Blocks
• Organizational Conversation
• Psychological Safety
• Communication
• Building Trust
• Summary
3. 1982 Tylenol Crisis – J & J
• 7 people died in Chicago. Market share
dropped to 7% from 35% ($1.2B
market). Spent $100M to recall 31M
bottles of Tylenol
• James Burke handled the crisis based
on J&J credo and relaunched the
product in tamper-proof packaging
• J&J market share had climbed back to
30% within a year
4. Core Values and Purpose
• Use core values as guard rails for decision
making
• Use purpose to guide the organization through
the crisis
• MST Purpose – "Create legacy across 3Cs
(Customers, Colleagues and Community)"
5. Stockdale Paradox
• Stockdale Paradox – Coined by
Jim Collins
• Balancing realism and optimism
in a dire situation is a key to
success
• More info on Stockdale Paradox
You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end — which you can never afford to
lose — with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever
they might be.
6. VUCA
• Framework used in US Military for thinking about handling
the external environment
• Volatility – should be met with Agility
• Uncertainty – should be met with Information
• Complexity – should be met with Restructuring
• Ambiguous – should be met with Experimentation
7. Elements of Organizational Conversation
Source: Boris Groysberg and Michael Slind, “Leadership Is a Conversation,” Harvard Business Review
8. Leadership – Building Blocks
Transparency
Authenticity
Empathy
Humility
Vulnerability
9. Psychological Safety
• Create safe venues for questions and ideas
• Create a channel for people who have concerns or
questions that they may not want to bring to their direct
supervisor
• Allow people to submit anonymous questions in meetings
• "What questions do you have?" is better than "Do you
have any questions?"
10. Communication
• Internal communications take precedence
• Focus on rebuilding the morale of the employees
• Strategies for communication in the “new normal” environment
• Weekly Townhall meetings
• Virtual Office Hours
• Virtual Breakfast/Lunch Meetings
• Create opportunities for two-way interactions
• Online Polling
12. Empathy
• Demonstrate “Empathy for Disruption“
• Support employees in coping with the challenges of the WFH
• Ensure employees have what they need to safeguard their health
• Increase appreciation and align that to core values
• Communicate the Context/Why behind any decisions
• Impact to revenue, other cost-cutting measures taken
• Underlying any salary or headcount reductions
• What benefits are being allocated to laid-off employees?
14. Building Trust
People trust leaders when they believe
• They are interacting with the real you (authenticity)
• They have faith in your judgement and competence
(logic)
• You care about them (empathy)
Trust
Authenticity
EmpathyLogic
Source - "Unleashed: The Unapologetic Leader's Guide to Empowering Everyone Around You"
15. Summary
• It is a marathon not a sprint
• Communicate more than you think you need to
• Frequent, candid, consistent, and personal communications
• Think about how to build resiliency into the organization
• Emerge stronger on the other side of the crisis
• Focus on Safety (emotional support), Belonging (tribe) and Mattering
(appreciation)
• Employee Assistance Programs, Mindfulness, Virtual Happy Hour
Editor's Notes
J&J’s credo stated that the company is responsible first to its customers, then to its employees, the community and the stockholders
The Stockdale Paradox—have faith, but confront reality.
Stockdale - “I never lost faith in the end of the story. I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which, in retrospect, I would not trade.”
Agility - A shift in leadership style from “commanding to coaching” with leaders utilizing two-way communication methods and positive language, focusing not on what can’t be done but on “How can we?” Use “collaborative problem-solving” sessions that action-oriented, beginning with a list of the issues that need to be resolved, focused on “constructive conflict,” and ending with a decision. “Swarming sessions,” which involve participants from multiple groups / functions impacted by a single issue, can be used as needed to facilitate rapid decisions.
Uncertainty - What effect the virus will have on the future? What new realities will it cause to be? What will recovery look like? How long will it take? What will a post-Covid world entail?
Is your organization a psychologically safe one?
Do lower-level team members feel respected?
Do people in your organization share or hoard knowledge?
Is mutual aid and friendship the norm or the exception?
Do people funnel feedback, news, and questions upward, or do they keep their bosses pacified and protected?
What happens when people make a mistake?
Is your organization a psychologically safe one?
Do lower-level team members feel respected?
Do people in your organization share or hoard knowledge?
Is mutual aid and friendship the norm or the exception?
Do people funnel feedback, news, and questions upward, or do they keep their bosses pacified and protected?
What happens when people make a mistake?
Finally, employers need to maintain employee engagement in the midst of a challenging work environment
Trust has three core drivers: authenticity, logic, and empathy. People tend to trust you when they believe they are interacting with the real you (authenticity), when they have faith in your judgment and competence (logic), and when they feel that you care about them (empathy). When trust is lost, it can almost always be traced back to a breakdown in one of these three drivers.