Its Time to "Restore the Years", Part 1. May 16, 2022. 00:00 27:40. Podcast Free MP3 Transcript. Do the prophets of ancient days have anything relevant to say to the church in our day? Do they ever! In this sermon on passages from Ezekiel, Amos, and Joel, Pastor Chuck Swindoll teaches how God's people must stay hungry for God's Word, how God's Ona working PC, go to the Microsoft software download website. Download the media creation tool and then run it. Select Create installation media for another PC. Choose a language, edition, and Ispent a substantial part of the first 25 years of my law career representing the interests of children whose families were in crisis. I probably have appeared in family court, juvenile court or Toreset your PC Swipe in from the right edge of the screen, tap Settings, and then tap Change PC settings. (If you're using a mouse, point to the upper-right corner of the screen, move the mouse pointer down, click Settings, and then click Change PC settings .) Tap or click Update and recovery, and then tap or click Recovery. . Life is a marathon, a journey that will inevitably bring many ups and downs. And, if you’ve been on this journey for any amount of time, you know that there are times when you just need to hit the reset button so that you can keep moving forward with strength, focus, stamina, and even passion in your life. For a long time, the thought of voluntarily hitting the reset button in my life was a little terrifying to embrace. Any time I had heard someone talk about needing a reset in their life, it was connected to something negative—a failure, burnout, a breakup or divorce, or related to a physical or mental health concern. I had internalized the need to hit the reset button with failure. And, it didn’t help that most of the successful people I had seen on television or known in my personal life appeared as if their life was perfect. After a while, I started to realize that everyone, even those successful people I admired, had many moments when they needed to hit the reset button. Honestly, it’s normal and a healthy part of living. Successful people know when it’s time to hit the reset button. It’s not a matter of if we will need to, it’s a matter of when and how many times. If we can increase our self-awareness, we can learn how to hit the button before things spiral too far out of our control. Yes, there are factors that are out of our control in life, but there are also many within it. The key is to find and focus on those factors. When I started realizing that the practice of resetting is natural, I began seeing it as a necessary part of life. Our skin is naturally regenerating and turning over new cells every day. As our hair grows, trimming creates the conditions for strong and healthy hair. These are just a few examples of how our bodies are trying to teach us the natural practice of resetting. If you have a cellphone or computer, you are used to receiving notifications that it’s time to reset for an important update. These devices analyze tons of available data, notice areas for improvement, and develop updates to ensure the device works effectively. If we intend to live our best life, it’s just as important to apply this practice so we can make greater long-term gains. When it comes to any basic technology, you know it’s time for a reset when programs start running slow or applications begin shutting down without warning. Similarly, there are personal signs that it might be time to hit the reset button. The goal is to use what’s within our locus of control to reset before we are forced to. Here are 10 signs that it might be time to hit the reset button You feel like you are in a physical or mental fog. Just like our electronic devices slow down or glitch when it’s time for an update, you might find yourself feeling burnt out, sluggish, or like your brain is foggy, distracted, or cluttered. In some cases, you aren’t feeling any of these yet, but you can see the road ahead and know that this is possible if you don’t take action soon. You are having more negative than positive thoughts about yourself and life. There is tremendous power in words and thoughts. Your thoughts become your words that then become your actions. Those actions become habits that build who you are, which then become your destiny. Want to change your destiny? Start by changing your thoughts and beliefs. You have not been prioritizing your health physical, mental, spiritual. If you have put any of these areas in the back seat for an extended period of time, you will definitely see and/or feel it eventually. It is important to make time for exercise and movement, self-care, reflection, prayer/mediation in whatever way you chose, and check-ins on your mental health. If it’s been a while, it might be time to start incorporating new routines that include these. You’ve found yourself living for people’s approval rather than living in your purpose. It’s very easy to focus on people-pleasing and the expectations of everyone around you without making sure that your actions align with your unique path and purpose. Your purpose is to stay on your path and to keep discovering what that means for you. If you’ve been spending too much time in someone else’s lane, then it’s time to set new intentions and embrace what’s designed for you. You feel like your mental health is unstable. Emotional and mental balance takes a lot of work to maintain and life is great at challenging it. Life can throw you into negative thinking patterns and behaviors that compromise your mental health. If you’re feeling unstable, it might be time to take a step back to process your emotions and thoughts. If necessary, don’t be afraid to schedule time with a therapist or coach to help you come back to alignment within yourself. You realize a pattern of making the same mistakes in your life. It’s OK to take an advanced version of the same test at different points in your life. It’s not productive to repeatedly fail the same level test. If this happens, it might be a sign that you still need to learn valuable life lessons. Listen to your life. Consider it a blessing that you are noticing the patterns and find the lesson so that you can move forward. This might be a sign there are still places in you that need healing and that’s OK. Your work and life balance are out of control. If you want to be on a fast track to crashing and burning, then ride the lack of work/life balance train. I’ve spent much of my career as an educator and senior manager, so I know firsthand what it feels like to work insane hours to tackle a never-ending to-do list. As a former sprinter, I know that it’s impossible to run miles at a 100-meter sprinter’s pace. It’s especially impossible to do that in every run. Life is a marathon; therefore, sprinting through life is not sustainable. You are constantly comparing yourself to other people. There are times when you might find yourself spending too much time comparing yourself to other people. This can leave you feeling frustrated, stuck, and depressed. There is no doubt that constant comparison leads to feelings of inadequacy, anxiety, depression, and/or frustration. So, if this is you, it might be time to hit the reset button and start focusing on learning more about who YOU are. Staying in this place for too long just delays you from finding your authentic path. You’ve lost interest in many of the positive things that you used to enjoy. The keyword here is “positive.” There are times when your interests and habits might change as a result of your growth and self-development. However, if you find yourself no longer wanting to be around people, places, and things that you love and know positively impact your growth, then it might be a sign that you need a mental health reset. You have stepped into a new space, role, job, or season that requires you to develop new skills, ideas, and/or capacity. This one is for those times when new doors, relationships, and experiences take place in your life. These moments create an opportunity to reflect and move forward with intention. Hitting the reset button helps you leave unnecessary baggage at the door. This is the perfect time to optimize your physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health. After reading through these signs, you might have discovered a few areas that need a reset. But, where do you start? How do you reset? Here are some steps I use to help me hit the reset button Take inventory. Start by reflecting on your physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health, and any other life goals. Where do you notice areas for improvement? Write these down without judgement and move on to the next steps. Check your WHY. After you have identified areas for improvement, consider why you want to improve these areas. The goal is to improve your focus, stamina, and productivity. If your reason is rooted in seeking acceptance, you are almost guaranteed disappointment and chasing many dead ends. So, before you move forward, make sure your why is rooted in principles, values, and a purpose that are enduring and inspire you for the long journey ahead. Gratitude. All opportunities to reset are a blessing. Life is either teaching you want to do or what not to do; both are great sources of data you can use to improve your life. Before you move forward, write down a few things that you are thankful for and a few lessons you have learned. Journal. Manifestation and visioning are important parts of hitting the reset button. You need to envision what it will look, feel, and sound like after you’ve reset. What will be better and/or different? How will you know? Take some time to let your mind imagine an improved version of yourself. Then, you can focus on activating the faith to get there. Make a plan. If you are going to change your thoughts and habits, you will need to make a plan to establish new routines and thinking habits. Remember, you should only focus on the things within your locus of control. For the things that are outside of your control, you can focus your energy on healing and dealing with your response and its impact on you. Positive Self Talk and Affirmations. When things are going well, celebrate your efforts. Tell yourself you are proud of your growth. When you are struggling, still celebrate even the smallest progress. Tell yourself you are capable and worthy of more growth. Just be careful of spiraling into negative self-talk. Remember, words have power. Learn to be your own cheerleader when you are having a hard time and when times are great. If you speak positively about yourself long enough, you’ll start to believe it. If you start to believe it, you will become it. Check-in on your progress. The most successful people I know practice the concept of failing fast. They don’t wait for things to be perfect before they start taking action; they take actions to learn fast and better assess when and where to adjust. Failure is just feedback and learning you can use to improve. Don’t wait for things to fail before you implement changes or upgrades. Proactively analyze the data your life and schedule a “reset” as needed. It’s not only important to know when it’s time to hit the reset button; it’s also imporant to schedule time to assess whether you are due for another upgrade. Life will unexpectedly throw challenges your way and that’s OK. You didn’t fail, you are just living. We have two options be forced to hit the reset button or proactively pay attention to the signs that it’s time for one. As we keep on living, let’s remember that every day presents an opportunity to hit the reset button, if we need it. You don’t have to wait for a new year or a special day. Keep looking for the opportunities to hit that reset button and improve your life. Clear decision-making in a crisis depends on sound methodology and gathering information from a ... [+] variety of sources. Advice from Boris Groysberg and Sarah by Boris Groysberg and Sarah Abbott While we may be living in unprecedented times, past events provide insights and practices as pandemic recovery plans are developed. Consider these five elements of organizational decision-making information gathering; strategy; combining long-term thinking with short-term actions; clear communication internally and externally; and a review of policies and processes to ensure the organization’s preparedness for future crises. Information gathering The flow of high-quality information is more important than ever. A United States military framework for thinking about the external environment that has gained traction in the business world is VUCA Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity. While these words seem similar in many respects, a key point of VUCA is that each of these terms describes a different situation that requires a specific response. Nathan Bennett, a professor with the Robinson College of Business at Georgia State University, and G. James Lemoine, an assistant professor in the Organization and Human Resources Department of the School of Management at the University at Buffalo, have written extensively on VUCA, and argue, “If VUCA is seen as general, unavoidable, and unsolvable, leaders will take no action and fail to solve an actual problem.” Thus, diagnosis of the situation is a prerequisite to crafting a response. They argue that volatility should be met with agility; uncertainty with information; complexity with restructuring with internal operations reconfigured to address external complexities; and ambiguity with experimentation. Uncertainty in this sense refers not to scientific questions about the coronavirus, but to what effect the virus will have on the future. What new realities will it generate? What will recovery look like? How long will it take? What will a post-COVID world entail? Bennett and Lemoine recommend reaching out “to partners, customers, researchers, trade groups, and perhaps even competitors” in times of uncertainty, in order to understand the impact of this phenomenon. Seek out new data sources and gather new perspectives. Here’s how one CEO we’ve talked with builds in multiple perspectives to his decision-making. At his industrial products company, he has established bi-weekly meetings with his senior team focused on two questions What do we know now that we didn’t know before? How can we use that information to make decisions? Each team member is responsible for research within their area talking to big customers, participating in supplier forums and webinars, scouring competitor websites. At the meeting, team members share their findings and discuss the available data, what assumptions can be drawn from it, and insights to be leveraged. These discussions are then translated into action points. Organizations should ensure internal decision-making processes incorporate conflicting points of view, if necessary designating a devil’s advocate or what the military calls a “red teamer.” Colonel Eric G. Kail, who writes about VUCA and its application in the business world, says red teamers “don’t simply shoot holes in a plan … [they require] leaders to move beyond that won’t happen’ to what if this occurs.” Red team membership should be rotated, he says, and leaders must be careful to protect them from backlash from other organizational members. In response to the broader perspective offered by his team’s devil’s advocate, one CEO shared that he took proposed across-the-board price cuts and implemented them in a much more nuanced way, with price decreases segmented by customer and channel. Another hallmark of stressful situations is that they can lead to paralysis and inaction, what Nathan Furr calls “unproductive uncertainty.” He recommends three strategies for decision-making in such circumstances Managers need to step back and consider all options, both near term and long term. This is because gathering information in this environment can cause us to become “so focused on the immediate situation that we overlook the broader possibilities.” Rather than focus on binary outcomes, which rarely play out, managers should consider the full spectrum of possible outcomes and assign probabilities to each. Keep in mind that “possibilities always exist.” Even in the worst situations, there are opportunities and choices to be made. Thinking about strategy A clear sense of organizational direction is central to knowing what information is significant and avoiding information overload. David J. Collis, the Thomas Henry Carroll Ford Foundation Adjunct Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, and Michael G. Rukstad, the late senior research fellow at HBS described a firm’s organizational direction as being a hierarchy that flows from the most enduring element, the corporate mission, through values, vision, strategy, and, ultimately, the implementation and monitoring of that strategy via tools such as balanced scorecards and key performance indicators KPIs. The strategy includes an organization’s objective, scope, and competitive advantage. In times of turmoil, CEOs should revisit their strategy and ask key questions What is the organization’s ultimate objective? In which directions products, customers, geographies, vertical integration will it go? In which directions will it not go? Finally, what does the organization do better or differently than others—in other words, what is our competitive advantage? “In times of economic distress, clarity of strategy becomes even more important,” wrote Michael Porter in 2008. In an economic downturn, figuring out what part of the industry that you want to serve becomes incredibly important.” It’s also important to not take actions in the short term that seem expedient but could ultimately undermine what’s different or unique about the company, he says. Porter provides the example of a company focused on high-end features and service that is tempted during a recession to cut back in response to a customer’s price concerns. This is the wrong move, he says. By cutting back on what has made it successful, that company risks becoming just like its competitors. He also contends that downturns can provide a little flexibility because the pressure to deliver short-term financial results is lessened. When all companies are reporting poor results, acting to make your company look a little better is not particularly value-added. We see this in action with the CEO of a B2B company who has responded to current pressure from customers by agreeing to cut prices in the short term in exchange for contract extensions; thereby being sensitive to their customers’ short-term needs while simultaneously improving the firm’s long-term competitive positioning. Strategy execution and implementation Strategic planning, converting strategic objectives into activities, is central to most organizations. Still, it is not possible to anticipate every event that might impact those plans. Executives need to be agile in order to adapt plans in response to unforeseen problems or opportunities. In doing so, they need to balance flexibility and speedy reaction times with long-term strategic focus. It is difficult to get this balance right! When surveyed on execution challenges, 29 percent of managers said that their company reacted too slowly, while 24 percent responded that their company reacted with sufficient speed, but in doing so lost sight of their strategy. Darrell K. Rigby, Sarah Elk, and Steve Berez write about the importance of building an “agile enterprise.” Their message—CEOs and other executives need to adopt a “humble agile mindset” to effectively lead an agile enterprise—can be aptly applied to the type of leadership required in the current environment. The authors highlight the importance of a rapid feedback loop, such as a brief daily check-in to give and receive feedback. These sessions can be used to eliminate barriers and ensure continued progress. Shifting leadership style from commanding to coaching is another agile leadership tool. Leaders use two-way communication methods and positive language, focusing not on what can’t be done but on how we can get it done. Rigby, Elk, and Berez also advise abandoning old school meeting formats in favor of “collaborative problem-solving sessions.” These are action-oriented, beginning with a list of issues that need to be resolved, focused on constructive conflict, and ending with a decision. “Swarming sessions,” which bring together participants from multiple groups and functions impacted by a single issue, can be used as needed to facilitate rapid decisions. Many companies measure strategy execution with KPIs assessed annually or maybe quarterly. In times of crisis, consider assessing more frequently. This is even more important in a virtual work world where employees don’t have the benefit of ongoing conversations that happen when people are physically together, a distance that can easily result in misalignment. A dispersed working environment can only succeed if everyone is clear on their role. What are the objectives? What work should be prioritized? How is work being divided among employees? It is important to avoid duplicative efforts. Implementing 30- or 60-day KPIs drives action and keeps people accountable and aligned. Communication around the establishment of short-term measurements should stress that these are not an effort to micromanage, but an acknowledgement of the awkward and tricky working situation. Assessing short-term goals keeps everyone on the same page and pushing forward together. As employees start to shift gradually back into the office with hybrid at-home/in-office work schedules likely in many places, short-term goals will provide transparency, visibility, and some stability. Communicate Your recovery strategy will need to include a detailed communication plan focused on all internal and external constituents. Internal communication is as important, if not more important, than external communication. In Crisis Communication Lessons from 9/11, Paul Argenti writes, “What I discovered is that, in a time of extreme crisis, internal communications take precedence. Before any other constructive action can take place—whether it's serving customers or reassuring investors—the morale of employees must be rebuilt." Many of the CEOs we heard from highlighted their concerns about getting communication right, particularly communication with their employees. How often? What platform? What tone? In Leadership on the Line Staying Alive Through the Dangers of Leading, co-authors Marty Linsky and Ronald Heifetz discuss the importance of “achieving a balcony perspective” in structuring a communication plan. They advise stepping back from a situation—getting on the balcony—to get “a clearer view of reality and some perspective on the bigger picture by distancing yourself from the fray.” Then, you “must return to the dance floor...The process must be iterative, not static. The challenge is to move back and forth between the dance floor and the balcony, making interventions, observing their impact in real time, and then returning to the action.” This exercise allows leaders to assess their people’s mindsets and tailor their communications accordingly. Stepping onto the balcony is even more challenging in a virtual world. But CEOs can test out different messages before disseminating them widely, seeking feedback and using it to fine-tune their communications. Some leaders have opted to keep their normal employee communication sessions in place, conducting those sessions virtually. One CEO explained that he was continuing to host regular town hall meetings, weekly listening sessions, and skip-level employee lunches, all on Zoom. In these forums he asks employees about their concerns and where they would like more information. These interactive sessions allow for feedback that would not be available with one-way communication tools. After-action review Take the time to review how your organization responded to the current situation and ask, “What can we do better next time?” This is not about placing blame after the fact. The US military uses after-action reviews AARs to gather and record lessons to apply in the future. The Army’s Opposing Force OPFOR is a brigade whose function is to prepare troops for combat, in part by engaging them in simulated combat. Despite the fact that they provide the trainee forces with detailed advance information on their methods, OPFOR almost always win. Part of OPFOR’s secret to success is its use of after-action reviews. They begin reviews while the event is still ongoing, with multiple AAR meetings often hosted by the unit’s commander. Each meeting starts with the recitation of the rules “Participate. No thin skins. Leave your stripes [ indications of rank and status] at the door. Take notes. Focus on our issues, not the issues of those above us…Absolute candor is critical.” Meetings address four questions “What were our intended results? What were our actual results? What caused our results? And what will we sustain or improve?” Admittedly, the corporate world has seen less success with AARs, despite the popularity of the practice, according to Marilyn Darling, Charles Parry, and Joseph Moore in Learning in the Thick of It. In their study of more than a dozen non-military organizations, they found numerous problems with their after action review procedures, including those that were conducted so long after the event that recollections were hazy and that failed to effectively apply the lessons learned. They recommend organizations use AARs selectively given the significant amount of resources required to do them well. AARs should also focus on areas that are mission critical for the greatest payoff. They offer four fundamentals of the AAR process the learnings must be primarily for the benefit of the team involved in the AAR; the process must start at the same time as the activity being reviewed; lessons must be linked explicitly to future actions, and everyone involved must be held accountable. The midst of a pandemic may not seem like the best time for an after action review, but Darling, Parry, and Moore write that during periods of intense activity, brief daily AAR meetings can help teams coordinate and improve the next day’s activities. AARs can be done on discrete projects like a pandemic-focused marketing campaign in order to improve response quality and long-term effectiveness. Following the 2007-09 recession, Harvard University conducted its own AAR and, in 2019, captured those learnings in a “recession playbook pdf” with the goal of ensuring financial resilience, defined as “stewarding resources to support and maintain excellence in teaching, research, and scholarship in perpetuity” during the next recession. The framework has four steps Managers throughout the organization should understand their exposure. What might the next economic crisis look like? How might it impact revenues under the current operating model? How might that exposure change as the organization’s operating model evolves over time? Groups should develop a clear set of principles that can serve as a guiding force when the time comes to make tradeoffs and balance priorities. Take a strategic approach to modeling downside projections by categorizing activities and businesses into “areas to invest, areas to maintain, and areas that can be reduced or eliminated.” Identify areas where revenues can be increased and costs cut in advance of a downturn. Strengthen the organization’s financial position proactively. Prepare for change. At some point, leaders will need to make a determination as to when and how this plan is put into action. Conclusion Inaction is not an option While the current uncertainty can be daunting for leaders of all types, it is critical not to fall back on inaction as the default position. A good starting point Ensure you are considering all available, relevant information but are not overwhelmed by information overload. Being clear about your organization’s strategy will provide focus to information-gathering and a roadmap for decision-making. Even then, many decisions will have to be made with imperfect data. Flexibility is important. Revisit your conclusions and pivot as needed. Utilizing short-term KPIs 30-day, or so is one way of monitoring decisions and assessing performance. This is a period of continuous learning. The lessons may be unchosen and unwanted, but they can be leveraged to guide future actions. It is important not to let them go to waste. Firms should ideally emerge from this crisis sturdier, wiser, and better prepared for future crises and events. Boris Groysberg is the Richard P. Chapman Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. Sarah Abbott is a research associate at Harvard Business School. [Editor’s note This is the third installment of a continuing series on issues that 600 CEOs told us keeps them awake at night. Today's topic The challenges of making organizational decisions in this uncertain environment.] While we may be living in unprecedented times, past events provide insights and practices as pandemic recovery plans are developed. Consider these five elements of organizational decision-making information gathering; strategy; combining long-term thinking with short-term actions; clear communication internally and externally; and a review of policies and processes to ensure the organization’s preparedness for future crises. Information gathering The flow of high-quality information is more important than ever. A United States military framework for thinking about the external environment that has gained traction in the business world is VUCA Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity. While these words seem similar in many respects, a key point of VUCA is that each of these terms describes a different situation that requires a specific response. Nathan Bennett, a professor with the Robinson College of Business at Georgia State University, and G. James Lemoine, an assistant professor in the Organization and Human Resources Department of the School of Management at the University at Buffalo, have written extensively on VUCA, and argue, “If VUCA is seen as general, unavoidable, and unsolvable, leaders will take no action and fail to solve an actual problem.” Thus, diagnosis of the situation is a prerequisite to crafting a response. They argue that volatility should be met with agility; uncertainty with information; complexity with restructuring with internal operations reconfigured to address external complexities; and ambiguity with experimentation. Uncertainty in this sense refers not to scientific questions about the coronavirus, but to what effect the virus will have on the future. What new realities will it generate? What will recovery look like? How long will it take? What will a post-COVID world entail? "Seek out new data sources and gather new perspectives." Bennett and Lemoine recommend reaching out “to partners, customers, researchers, trade groups, and perhaps even competitors” in times of uncertainty, in order to understand the impact of this phenomenon. Seek out new data sources and gather new perspectives. Here’s how one CEO we’ve talked with builds in multiple perspectives to his decision-making. At his industrial products company, he has established bi-weekly meetings with his senior team focused on two questions What do we know now that we didn’t know before? How can we use that information to make decisions? Each team member is responsible for research within their area talking to big customers, participating in supplier forums and webinars, scouring competitor websites. At the meeting, team members share their findings and discuss the available data, what assumptions can be drawn from it, and insights to be leveraged. These discussions are then translated into action points. Organizations should ensure internal decision-making processes incorporate conflicting points of view, if necessary designating a devil’s advocate or what the military calls a “red teamer.” Colonel Eric G. Kail, who writes about VUCA and its application in the business world, says red teamers “don’t simply shoot holes in a plan … [they require] leaders to move beyond that won’t happen’ to what if this occurs.” Red team membership should be rotated, he says, and leaders must be careful to protect them from backlash from other organizational members. In response to the broader perspective offered by his team’s devil’s advocate, one CEO shared that he took proposed across-the-board price cuts and implemented them in a much more nuanced way, with price decreases segmented by customer and channel. Another hallmark of stressful situations is that they can lead to paralysis and inaction, what Nathan Furr calls “unproductive uncertainty.” He recommends three strategies for decision-making in such circumstances Managers need to step back and consider all options, both near term and long term. This is because gathering information in this environment can cause us to become “so focused on the immediate situation that we overlook the broader possibilities.” Rather than focus on binary outcomes, which rarely play out, managers should consider the full spectrum of possible outcomes and assign probabilities to each. Keep in mind that “possibilities always exist.” Even in the worst situations, there are opportunities and choices to be made. Thinking about strategy A clear sense of organizational direction is central to knowing what information is significant and avoiding information overload. David J. Collis, the Thomas Henry Carroll Ford Foundation Adjunct Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, and Michael G. Rukstad, the late senior research fellow at HBS described a firm’s organizational direction as being a hierarchy that flows from the most enduring element, the corporate mission, through values, vision, strategy, and, ultimately, the implementation and monitoring of that strategy via tools such as balanced scorecards and key performance indicators KPIs. The strategy includes an organization’s objective, scope, and competitive advantage. In times of turmoil, CEOs should revisit their strategy and ask key questions What is the organization’s ultimate objective? In which directions products, customers, geographies, vertical integration will it go? In which directions will it not go? Finally, what does the organization do better or differently than others—in other words, what is our competitive advantage? "Another hallmark of stressful situations is that they can lead to paralysis and inaction." “In times of economic distress, clarity of strategy becomes even more important,” wrote Michael Porter in 2008. In an economic downturn, figuring out what part of the industry that you want to serve becomes incredibly important.” It’s also important to not take actions in the short term that seem expedient but could ultimately undermine what’s different or unique about the company, he says. Porter provides the example of a company focused on high-end features and service that is tempted during a recession to cut back in response to a customer’s price concerns. This is the wrong move, he says. By cutting back on what has made it successful, that company risks becoming just like its competitors. He also contends that downturns can provide a little flexibility because the pressure to deliver short-term financial results is lessened. When all companies are reporting poor results, acting to make your company look a little better is not particularly value-added. We see this in action with the CEO of a B2B company who has responded to current pressure from customers by agreeing to cut prices in the short term in exchange for contract extensions; thereby being sensitive to their customers’ short-term needs while simultaneously improving the firm’s long-term competitive positioning. Strategy execution and implementation Strategic planning, converting strategic objectives into activities, is central to most organizations. Still, it is not possible to anticipate every event that might impact those plans. Executives need to be agile in order to adapt plans in response to unforeseen problems or opportunities. In doing so, they need to balance flexibility and speedy reaction times with long-term strategic focus. It is difficult to get this balance right! When surveyed on execution challenges, 29 percent of managers said that their company reacted too slowly, while 24 percent responded that their company reacted with sufficient speed, but in doing so lost sight of their strategy. Darrell K. Rigby, Sarah Elk, and Steve Berez write about the importance of building an “agile enterprise.” Their message—CEOs and other executives need to adopt a “humble agile mindset” to effectively lead an agile enterprise—can be aptly applied to the type of leadership required in the current environment. The authors highlight the importance of a rapid feedback loop, such as a brief daily check-in to give and receive feedback. These sessions can be used to eliminate barriers and ensure continued progress. Shifting leadership style from commanding to coaching is another agile leadership tool. Leaders use two-way communication methods and positive language, focusing not on what can’t be done but on how we can get it done. Rigby, Elk, and Berez also advise abandoning old school meeting formats in favor of “collaborative problem-solving sessions.” These are action-oriented, beginning with a list of issues that need to be resolved, focused on constructive conflict, and ending with a decision. “Swarming sessions,” which bring together participants from multiple groups and functions impacted by a single issue, can be used as needed to facilitate rapid decisions. Many companies measure strategy execution with KPIs assessed annually or maybe quarterly. In times of crisis, consider assessing more frequently. This is even more important in a virtual work world where employees don’t have the benefit of ongoing conversations that happen when people are physically together, a distance that can easily result in misalignment. A dispersed working environment can only succeed if everyone is clear on their role. What are the objectives? What work should be prioritized? How is work being divided among employees? It is important to avoid duplicative efforts. Implementing 30- or 60-day KPIs drives action and keeps people accountable and aligned. Communication around the establishment of short-term measurements should stress that these are not an effort to micromanage, but an acknowledgement of the awkward and tricky working situation. Assessing short-term goals keeps everyone on the same page and pushing forward together. As employees start to shift gradually back into the office with hybrid at-home/in-office work schedules likely in many places, short-term goals will provide transparency, visibility, and some stability. Communicate Your recovery strategy will need to include a detailed communication plan focused on all internal and external constituents. Internal communication is as important, if not more important, than external communication. In Crisis Communication Lessons from 9/11, Paul Argenti writes, “What I discovered is that, in a time of extreme crisis, internal communications take precedence. Before any other constructive action can take place—whether it's serving customers or reassuring investors—the morale of employees must be rebuilt." Many of the CEOs we heard from highlighted their concerns about getting communication right, particularly communication with their employees. How often? What platform? What tone? In Leadership on the Line Staying Alive Through the Dangers of Leading, co-authors Marty Linsky and Ronald Heifetz discuss the importance of “achieving a balcony perspective” in structuring a communication plan. They advise stepping back from a situation—getting on the balcony—to get “a clearer view of reality and some perspective on the bigger picture by distancing yourself from the fray.” Then, you “must return to the dance floor...The process must be iterative, not static. The challenge is to move back and forth between the dance floor and the balcony, making interventions, observing their impact in real time, and then returning to the action.” This exercise allows leaders to assess their people’s mindsets and tailor their communications accordingly. Stepping onto the balcony is even more challenging in a virtual world. But CEOs can test out different messages before disseminating them widely, seeking feedback and using it to fine-tune their communications. Some leaders have opted to keep their normal employee communication sessions in place, conducting those sessions virtually. One CEO explained that he was continuing to host regular town hall meetings, weekly listening sessions, and skip-level employee lunches, all on Zoom. In these forums he asks employees about their concerns and where they would like more information. These interactive sessions allow for feedback that would not be available with one-way communication tools. After-action review Take the time to review how your organization responded to the current situation and ask, “What can we do better next time?” This is not about placing blame after the fact. The US military uses after-action reviews AARs to gather and record lessons to apply in the future. The Army’s Opposing Force OPFOR is a brigade whose function is to prepare troops for combat, in part by engaging them in simulated combat. Despite the fact that they provide the trainee forces with detailed advance information on their methods, OPFOR almost always win. Part of OPFOR’s secret to success is its use of after-action reviews. They begin reviews while the event is still ongoing, with multiple AAR meetings often hosted by the unit’s commander. Each meeting starts with the recitation of the rules “Participate. No thin skins. Leave your stripes [ indications of rank and status] at the door. Take notes. Focus on our issues, not the issues of those above us…Absolute candor is critical.” Meetings address four questions “What were our intended results? What were our actual results? What caused our results? And what will we sustain or improve?” Admittedly, the corporate world has seen less success with AARs, despite the popularity of the practice, according to Marilyn Darling, Charles Parry, and Joseph Moore in Learning in the Thick of It. In their study of more than a dozen non-military organizations, they found numerous problems with their after action review procedures, including those that were conducted so long after the event that recollections were hazy and that failed to effectively apply the lessons learned. They recommend organizations use AARs selectively given the significant amount of resources required to do them well. AARs should also focus on areas that are mission critical for the greatest payoff. They offer four fundamentals of the AAR process the learnings must be primarily for the benefit of the team involved in the AAR; the process must start at the same time as the activity being reviewed; lessons must be linked explicitly to future actions, and everyone involved must be held accountable. The midst of a pandemic may not seem like the best time for an after action review, but Darling, Parry, and Moore write that during periods of intense activity, brief daily AAR meetings can help teams coordinate and improve the next day’s activities. AARs can be done on discrete projects like a pandemic-focused marketing campaign in order to improve response quality and long-term effectiveness. "Managers throughout the organization should understand their exposure." Following the 2007-09 recession, Harvard University conducted its own AAR and, in 2019, captured those learnings in a “recession playbook” with the goal of ensuring financial resilience, defined as “stewarding resources to support and maintain excellence in teaching, research, and scholarship in perpetuity” during the next recession. The framework has four steps Managers throughout the organization should understand their exposure. What might the next economic crisis look like? How might it impact revenues under the current operating model? How might that exposure change as the organization’s operating model evolves over time? Groups should develop a clear set of principles that can serve as a guiding force when the time comes to make tradeoffs and balance priorities. Take a strategic approach to modeling downside projections by categorizing activities and businesses into “areas to invest, areas to maintain, and areas that can be reduced or eliminated.” Identify areas where revenues can be increased and costs cut in advance of a downturn. Strengthen the organization’s financial position proactively. Prepare for change. At some point, leaders will need to make a determination as to when and how this plan is put into action. Conclusion Inaction is not an option While the current uncertainty can be daunting for leaders of all types, it is critical not to fall back on inaction as the default position. A good starting point Ensure you are considering all available, relevant information but are not overwhelmed by information overload. Being clear about your organization’s strategy will provide focus to information-gathering and a roadmap for decision-making. Even then, many decisions will have to be made with imperfect data. Flexibility is important. Revisit your conclusions and pivot as needed. Utilizing short-term KPIs 30-day, or so is one way of monitoring decisions and assessing performance. This is a period of continuous learning. The lessons may be unchosen and unwanted, but they can be leveraged to guide future actions. It is important not to let them go to waste. Firms should ideally emerge from this crisis sturdier, wiser, and better prepared for future crises and events. [Image iStock Photo] Other Stories In This Series How Remote Work Changes What We Think About Onboarding What Leaders Can Do to Fight the COVID Fog About the Authors Boris Groysberg is the Richard P. Chapman Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. Sarah Abbott is a research associate at Harvard Business School. Share your insights below. US president Joe Biden has said on several occasions he considers the United States to be in competition but not in conflict with it seems clear that relations between Washington and Beijing have been this week the White House warned that if things continued on the current path with what it sees as overly aggressive actions on the part of the Chinese military, “it won’t be long until someone gets hurt”.A reset of relations had seemed on the cards earlier this year. But the discovery of a Chinese balloon over the United States last February, believed by Washington to be a surveillance craft, put paid to a planned visit by the US secretary of state Antony Blinken to Beijing.[ US-China conflict would be an unbearable disaster’ for the world, says China’s defence minister ][ Gideon Rachman How to stop a war between America and China ]And while some of Biden critics would seem to favour a softer line with Russia, few on the right are demanding a more emollient stance with a Wall Street Journal report this week that China is to establish an electronic eavesdropping facility in Cuba to capture communications from across the south eastern United States will probably add to the anti-Beijing this week by the US national security council co-ordinator for strategic communications John Kirby about “growing aggressiveness” on the part of China came against a backdrop of two recent incidents in the Taiwan Straits and the South China Sea involving US and Chinese ships and Sunday the US navy released a video of a Chinese warship crossing about 140m in front of a US vessel in what it described as an “unsafe interaction” in the sensitive waters of the Taiwan followed on from an earlier incident on May 26th when a Chinese fighter intercepted a US reconnaissance aircraft in international airspace over the South China American side maintained its RC-135 aircraft was forced to fly through the wake turbulence of the Chinese jet which flew right in front of its said its actions were “completely reasonable, legitimate, professional and safe”. It blamed the US for Washington, the recent events were not just the isolated actions of a couple of hot-headed pilots or naval it sees them as a move by the Chinese to push the US out of areas which Beijing considers to be its insists it is a Pacific power and that it will not be forced out of international sea lanes and airspace. This raises the possibility – maybe likelihood – that there will be further such incidents.“From our perspective, we’re flying, we’re sailing, we’re operating in international airspace and international waters. And both of those incidents were in complete compliance with international law. There was absolutely no need for the PLA Chinese People’s Liberation Army to act as aggressively as they did.“It won’t be long before somebody gets hurt. That’s the concern with these unsafe and unprofessional intercepts. They can lead to misunderstandings. They can lead to miscalculations.“When you have pieces of metal that size, whether it’s in the air or on the sea and they’re operating that close together, it wouldn’t take much for an error in judgment or a mistake to get made, and somebody could get hurt,” Kirby suggested the Chinese may have been trying to send a message to Washington – “a statement of some sort of displeasure about our presence in that part of the world”.He said “But as the president said very clearly in Hiroshima [at the recent G 7 summit], we are a Pacific power; we’re not going anywhere. We’ve got serious commitments in that part of the world. Five of our seven treaty alliances are in the Indo-Pacific. The vast majority of international economic trade flows through the Indo-Pacific. We’ve got real needs there, and we’re going to stay there.“If the message that they’re trying to send is that we’re not welcome or our presence needs to be diminished, or they want us to stop flying and sailing and operating in support of international law not going to happen.”But diplomacy is still going on. Washington said that two top officials, from the White House and the state department, were in Beijing this week. And there are reports that Blinken’s visit to China may be rescheduled for later this state department said this week that the US was looking to “continue to have a predictable relationship” with China.“President Biden has been clear. We don’t seek any kind of new cold war, and our competition must not spill over into conflict.”However, with the militaries of countries operating in proximity, the danger is that accidents could happen.

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