COVID-19 Brief 12/77/20
A Message on COVID-19 from WorkSTEPS Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Ben Hoffman:
The Home Stretch Will Be Long – Resilience Needed Now More Than Ever
Take-Aways
- We appear to be rounding the corner on Covid-19, but the home stretch will be long.
- The leadership skills needed now are different than early on. Then, it was about reacting to a new and unexpected threat; now, it’s about stamina.
- Leading in the next phase will challenge us to: 1) Distinguish between what is urgent and what is important; 2) Balance compassion for our people with the need/opportunity to inspire high performance; and 3) Energize everyone every day.
- We can apply the above recommendations to leadership of our corporate Covid-19 strategies. Critical will be reframing the pandemic away from day-to-day urgencies and toward the critical goal of returning our businesses, jobs lives and communities to normal by achieving high rates of vaccination.
- Leaders should take the opportunity to strengthen their resilience in and through the next phase of this crisis.By every measure, 2020 has been rough. Even if your business has prospered during the pandemic, you and your employees have been subject to uncertainty, fear, loss, change, and isolation. I doubt you need convincing of this, but if you’d like a nice (depressing) summary, this recent WSJ articlewill give you the numbers behind the pain.
The Home Stretch
At the threshold of a new year, it feels like we’re rounding the corner and heading into the home stretch of this troubled journey. Even as our minds struggle with headlines about record-setting numbers of new infections and deaths, we’re processing really good news about vaccines. We sit with sadness and frustration, but also with hope and anticipation that 2021 will be different.
And, if vaccine approvals, production, distribution and vaccination all go well, 2021 will be different. But even in the best-case scenarios, we won’t be returning to anything that feels like “normal” until well into the third quarter, and fourth quarter is probably more likely.
We are rounding the corner into the home stretch, but it’s going to be a looonnnggg one, and it’s going to require a different set of leadership skills than was needed to navigate earlier phases of the pandemic.
Leading Through This Next Phase
The best thing I’ve read about the leadership challenge we now face and the mindset with which we need to face it landed in my inbox this week. The title, How to Lead When Your Team is Exhausted – and You Are Too How to Lead When Your Team is Exhausted – and You Are Too, spoke to me, so I read it immediately and with great interest. I expect the title will grab you as well and that you’ll be enticed as I was to read it in full. As such, I’m just going to simply summarize the author’s key points, and then add my thoughts about the specific challenge of leading a corporate Covid-19 strategy.
Key points
- Home stretch leadership will be different than the leadership needed in the initial phases of the pandemic. The first wave required leaders to quickly assess the threat and to mount a response. It was an adrenaline-filled response to a sudden and unexpected threat…a fight for survival. In this next phase, we need psychological stamina to fight through the randomness, gloom and persistent burden of the pandemic.
- Cultivating resilience for what comes next will require that we reframe the challenges we’re facing and use that new framing to tap the psychological stamina we and our teams need to succeed.
- First, as the article’s author Merete Wedell-Wedellsborg notes, we need to distinguish between urgent and important. Rather than continue to react to the circumstances of the pandemic, leaders should focus proactively on what comes next for the business, identify that as what matters most, and keep everyone’s sights set on creating that desired future. The pandemic has shaken economies, industries, businesses, and functions within businesses. The shake-up presents an unprecedented opportunity to think critically and strategically about how the company will emerge better and stronger from this crisis.
- Second, we need to balance compassion and containment. We need to share with vulnerability, listen with empathy and respond with compassion because – to one degree or another – everyone’s life has been turned upside-down and we shouldn’t pretend otherwise. Having said that, the objective isn’t for leaders to throw a pity party. Rather, it is to acknowledge common fears and frustrations so that colleagues can function as a team in pursuit of new aims; to – as the author puts it – give the team a second wind for the race ahead.
- Third, we need to energize everyone every day. This work is enabled by the prior tasks. Our job is to remind ourselves and our teams about the important work we’re doing and the shared commitment we’ve made to doing it. It’s also about keeping score so that we don’t forget to celebrate successes and hold each other accountable to do better.
- The article concludes by recognizing the importance of personal resilience, particularly for leaders. Wedell-Wedellsborg notes: “Managing your own mind and deciding to take charge of your destiny (and helping others do the same) is where you find mental strength for the last mile.”Advice Applied to Covid-19 Strategy Leadership
As I read again and summarize the points above, the following thoughts occur to me relative to the challenges we face in leading corporate Covid-19 strategy:
- Urgent vs. important: We will not be able to escape the urgencies that await us in the months ahead – urgencies related to continue implementation of basic prevention policies, managing outbreaks, and planning/executing employee vacinations As leaders, we should strive to frame all of that urgent activity within the context of what matters most – enabling the company to safely return to normal operations (and people return to normal lives) as quickly as possible. Help people to vividly picture that future, hold it up in front of them, and use it to inspire all the work that will need to be done.
- Compassion and Containment:
- Remember the “We’re all in this together!” sentiment that was wonderfully common in the early days of the pandemic? It was trampled by political division and is hard to find now. But, it seems to me, we have an opportunity to bring it back. Despite a vocal anti-vaccine movement, the vast majority of people are again united in the hope that they can get their lives back. If we take time to acknowledge the suffering that we’ve all endured and vividly picture the future we want, we can rally people around vaccination to achieve our goals.
- Energize Everyone, Every Day: As we plan for workforce vaccination, we should set our goals, share the progress we’re making, and keep employees informed about where things are and how they can help. If we’re in this together again, then make it clear that we’re in it together.And finally, regarding personal resilience: A crisis will both test our resilience and help us strengthen our resilience skills. Space won’t allow a lot of words on this. I will only say that if you’ve not explicitly looked at your own resilience, do so. There is a lot written on resilience, you can find apps that will help you build your resilience, and you may want to consider coaching to improve your resilience. It will serve you through this crisis and well beyond.
Ben Hoffman, MD, MPH
Chief Medical Officer, WorkSTEPS