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If you’re in Australia, at least not all of you guys are in Australia but for us in Australia things are starting to normalise a little bit with this coronavirus deal. It’s been intense, it’s been hard.
How’s it been for you?
I can imagine what it’s been like, and I hear you and I feel you. One of the things I can help with is the problem around working with a team of people or staff in your business who are really anxious, uncertain about the future and worried about what the future might hold.
Uncertain and Anxious
So what happens to us when we feel that way is literally all the blood in our brain rushes to the base of our brain which is our survival reptilian brain.
We find it hard to think about the big picture, we find it hard to think about the future and everything becomes about my immediate survival. And you know all the behaviours that are associated with that. From what people tell me a lot of those behaviours manifest in the office as often as people being quite selfish, which is really frustrating and irritating as a business owner because you’re just trying to keep the whole thing going for them, existing, so they do have a job.
What I’m gonna talk about today is what you can do to kind of communicate with them so that you can reduce that and get them back to some sense of normality.
External Threats
So a little bit of a sideways way of thinking about this, I listen to a podcast this week conversation with a lady who’s an expert in superstitious thinking. The crazy theory we all have that explain things that are just random. Like for example the theory that the Coronavirus is all distributed by the 5G network. You’ve all heard of that one out there? She’s an expert in conspiracy theories and conspiracy thinking. I’m not saying you guys are making stuff up, but I am saying that when we’re faced with a threat, which is what we are right now like literally a big external threat happens.
What can happen without thinking is rather than just accepting in many cases that this is a random event and actually the nature of the world, is quite chaotic and stuff happens, which by the way I believe is the truth. Then we often start to think of often what we start to do is come up with things we can blame with explanations that often got known truth about them. And what we’re trying to do there is exert some level of control over a situation that is inherently random.
The Challenge
So if you think about in your case, how many of your team or staff those that aren’t coping are trying to either explain away this situation in a way that makes them feel comfortable. Are they trying to exert some control in a situation where they just got a flex and kind of go with it, or how many of them are just trying to sort of blame it on other factors outside of the company or outside of your team?
The point of this is that they produce behaviours like I talked about in my intro, that are hard for you. Most of the people in this group are people who run businesses, you run a team, you are responsible for an outcome. And the nature of leadership is that you know you’re in the end, the person who has that responsibility. Part of that is helping your staff cope, get through, so that’s a job, and it’s tough when you get in those behaviours. What can you do about it?
Address Specific Concerns
Here’s what we did with a client of mine that I just want to share. Her team, leadership team came to me and said that essentially her team was feeling quite anxious and we sort of brainstormed the different ways that we could help people do that. And what we came up with was actually if you go with a one way or a tell way of managing this you’re not going to get anywhere, because you know it kind of if you do a presentation you are assuming know what they’re anxious about. And so what we need to do is to start to think about addressing specific concerns. And so the best format for that that we came up with was a Q and A.
And so what they did was they had the whole team, leadership team on a virtual call. And if you’re in a smaller business like if you’re in a small midsize business this is sometimes much easier to do because you can get your staff together, you can go big virtual if you got a big team, 50 people, or you can kind of go small intimate in a single room, obviously socially distanced, if you are a small business.
- The key thing is that this went for 60 minutes, and it kind of had this structure. They presented for about 15-20 minutes, the key thing is it’s not just the CEO, it’s the team that presents. And what they presented is the facts, what they know, and what they don’t know and what they can be certain about.
- The second part of this was the questions, I think this was quite useful. They actually fielded the number of those beforehand and collected them. So they got it beforehand and you can do that by email, or if you got slack or some sort of chat tool and you can do that beforehand. So they addressed some of those questions, and they then asked the new ones. What they found is that everyone is concerned about basically the pipeline, whether the pipeline is strong enough to keep their jobs and then the other thing was sort of pay and bonus. But from their perspective that’s where their concerned about and that’s what’s important to them. I think the key thing would be this mindset is it’s not about you. It’s about what they are anxious about.
- The third piece of this is rinse and repeat. Do it regularly, so you might want to do it every 2 weeks, I think that’s a good rhythm for that, then you can do it or move it to every month when things normalise a bit.
I don’t want this to be massively long, but here’s the thing, when we are presented with a big external threat, things happen and this is not just coronavirus, you could be watching this because your new competitors come into the market, because part of your businesses has lost money. Whatever it is, the randomness and chaos of the world out there often would trying to create an explanation, we blame it, and we try to exert some control and that produces behaviours where people are driven by anxiety, concern and uncertainty.
Summary
The way to deal with anxiousness is through questions and answers and one of my clients did a really great 60 minute Q & A, leadership team or a small group where they fill the questions beforehand and they had the chance then to answer those directly with people and have conversations with people.
If you’re not doing this already, I highly recommend this kind of process, 15-20 minutes where you present what you know, what future looks like, what you can be certain about, 20 minutes kind of Q & A where you address those questions either beforehand or the things that come up in the room, and then rinse and repeat it. Two weeks or every month is the really nice way to go with this one
One of the things I’m doing right now is thinking about my future and where I go from here, and I’ve really got some exciting programs built for mid-size companies that’re scaling and growing to help them lead through circumstances like this, to help them scale their businesses up.
Leave me a comment or Get in Touch
It’s really a simple thing if you are ready for help, you’re ready to take that next step, just try to message me. I’ll send you to a link, it’s a little short survey that you need to fill out and then a quick sort of 15-20 minute call just to make sure we are a good fit to work together.
If that’s something you need right now, let me know. Leave a comment below or send me a direct message and remember when people are anxious you need to communicate with conversations. That’s what matters.
Talk to you soon.
When you are ready…. let’s work out if we are a good fit.
If you’re a growing mid size business and you want help to get more focus in your leadership team, scaling with people and systems or leading inside and outside your organisation, then click the link below. You’ll be taken to a super short survey and then asked to book in an initial 20-minute call where we can work out if what you need is aligned with the results I can deliver.
I look forward to the chat…
