Crises are a common thing within organizations. Thus, in this Expert Insight Interview, Mark Morey discusses management during a crisis. Mark Morey is an executive coach who specializes in developing thriving company cultures through enduring solutions.
This interview discusses:
- Practicing gratitude
- Improving communication and transparency
- Things that get overlooked
- Being prepared for the crisis
Practice Gratitude
In a time of crisis, we should make a routine to slow down and connect. One way to reduce the edge and create more connections is to have a protocol of opening a workplace meeting by saying things that make us grateful. Gratitude can be an instrument of leadership because it encourages intentional mind-focusing activity, and it requires you to embrace a positive mindset at that moment. Thus, it should be a part of a company culture that leaders pull out a connection practice right away when they feel a sense of urgency.
Communication and Transparency
Other critical things to have in crisis are regular communication and transparency with your employees. As a leader, to improve communication when talking to others, you have to shift the focus from your needs to the other person’s needs. Consider what they are going through right now, and ask open-ended questions. Asking an open-ended question allows a fresh answer that generates less transaction and way more relational conversation.
Overlooked Things
In a crisis, leaders forget that waiting and pausing are options too. They should allow themselves moments to breathe and recharge their mental faculties. It only takes a second for things to change. Thus, it is critical to gather all the information, monitor the statistics, and catch the trends to plan further. Leaders usually think that they have to be doing something, but taking a pause and evaluating the situation sends a way better message and builds trust in employees.
How to Prepare for a Crisis
Crises happen all the time, so it is essential to have enduring solutions and enduring cultural practices. Some communities are more resilient than others because they have a lot of horizontal connections. All people within those communities have the sense in which direction the community is going, are deeply interconnected, share resources, and have distributed leadership.
The point is that people who work within the same company in crossfunctional departments get to know each other, so their collaboration becomes faster when the crisis demands it. Nowadays, with independent contractors and distributed leadership, we have so many people working together and experiencing collective disconnection. Thus, the key is to work on human connection as a part of company culture without waiting for the crisis to force it.
Our Host
John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.
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