This time of opening is a chance for leaders to lay a strong, durable foundation for their organisation’s future great performance. It’s an opportunity for them to listen to their people and revisit their Values.

Organisations the world over have been forced to make drastic cuts to their operational budgets in the face of the global COVID-19 shutdown. The burden of these cuts has fallen heavily on people. The numbers filing as unemployed in the US are staggering but the whole world over people have been laid off, impacting their lives with immediate, brutal effect.

We must have compassion for those people, but we must also look ahead to how we rebuild our organisations; the jobs created in the future will be opportunities for those that have lost their jobs now to find meaningful work again. But what of those that remain, the ones who haven’t, yet, lost their jobs? These people are going to be the engines for the post COVID-19 recovery. It’s important those engines are firing on all cylinders. How is that going?

Inevitably, there is a wide diversity of “states”. In some organisations, COVID-19 has brought teams more strongly together. In others, it has blown them asunder, destroying the fabric of culture and trust that existed, perhaps more tenuously than imagined, before the virus struck. Some organisations have seen demand explode so they’re at least financially OK but this may mask deeper, underlying problems. In others, where there have been mass layoffs, there is a risk of “survivor syndrome” affecting those that remain. Worse, in the rush to cut, there may have been little thought given to how teams will grow in recovery; what’s the future vision? What will the organisation look like going forward? Desperate to cut numbers just to survive the short-term crisis, leaders may not yet have had the chance to fathom such future facing questions. If they have, they might only have embryonic ideas as the future still sits very much in the “it depends” column as everyone waits to see what happens next.

How do we best get teams working together again?

As we emerge from lockdown, there's a sense that switches will be turned back on, folk will come back to their workstations, we will all go back to how things were and all will soon be well again.

But much has changed since we last saw each other face to face.

Lockdown has been a hugely positive experience for some – time spent with families, no commutes, freed from a dull office space with its many distractions and so on. These folks will feel they’re giving up something precious to return to their workstation. For others, it’s been super tough - homeschooling, financial burdens, strained relationships, mental health issues. Many folks report being busier and more stressed working from home than before.

People may have lost family members or friends to the virus. People may have had it themselves or seen loved ones suffering with it. Others will have seen queues of people waiting to buy food; they may have been queueing themselves. Still more will know someone who has lost their job or themselves felt the anxiety that the next phone call could be for them. Some may be working for organisations in which they’ve lost faith. Leaders have had to make so many tough decisions and themselves have suffered pains and anxieties having to let so many good people go. They may not have explained their thinking as well as they might, given the stress they’re under. Even if they explained it perfectly, stressed people might have received it wrongly so that two plus two equals thirty-six. There are bruises, scars and damage to cultures, team spirit and the organisational fabric that existed, perhaps tenuously, pre-COVID. There are no survivors.

Leaders who are cognisant of all these things will understand that there’s going to need to be some reconciliation time. Calling everyone back, whipping the lights on and getting the money-machine whirring again, even with all the right motivations, risks sweeping some fundamental issues under the carpet. Left there, in many organisations, the COVID “troubles” may, in time, be forgotten. Yet, some might fester too and then emerge later to damage future potential at best or more seriously, lead to big collapses as resentments overflow.

We do have to get folk back to their workstations, there can be healing in that too, but creating a space, beyond chats at the coffee machine or over lunch, where individuals and teams can share how the COVID experience was for them could, if handled correctly, help bring people closer together. It could create an opportunity to share truths around how they feel they were treated, both good and bad. It creates an opportunity for empathy – from bosses to their associates but vice versa too. No one’s had this time easy.

The interplay between personal and organisational values will be key in this process. We learn most about ourselves and the people we work with when times are tough. How did everyone go? Were there missteps? No doubt there were mistakes. Or were they? There’s judgement here and so often those judgements will be wrong, but people hold to them with grim determination and write off a colleague or a boss because of something they said or did. This risks missing the fact that they’re actually good people who messed up under stress or perhaps their decision was spot on, just poorly communicated. Airing all this stuff will be critical to get it out of the way, out of the room as it were. Left alone, it risks being a very large elephant that will impact the organisation’s future.

The organisation itself might want to pause, have a deep breath and reflect on what just happened. How did we do? What did we learn? Might this change who we are and the way we act in a post-COVID world?

This really is good time to look at your personal and organisational values and check if they need changing based on your COVID experience. Changed or otherwise, getting everyone bound around a common set of values can energise individuals and teams to find a path to great future performance.

Leaders have a chance to get this right. If they can listen to their people and use this opportunity to revisit and get strong buy-in around their values, they’ll lay a strong, durable foundation for their organisation’s future.

If you’re interested in exploring how you can pursue a path to great performance by providing opportunities for your people to regroup after the COVID shutdown, please do get in touch.

Remember Your People: they're the engines for your post COVID-19 recovery.