when your firm faces economic challenges
Events that we perceive always seem random unless we’re in on the plan. We search for patterns, something to give us the safety net of predictability. Something to ease the anxiety of surprise. We don’t like surprises that rip apart our sense of safety, even if that sense of safety is laced with illusion. Truth be told, I don’t think most people even like surprise birthday parties.
As a nation we’ve had some whombo surprises in the last months. We search for patterns, for a plan that gives us something to go on. We want to lessen the danger of random events. Probably, most of all we want to know that if some lunatic with a rifle has a plan, we’re not in that plan.
Many of my coaching clients are at the head of business organizations. One situation that comes up for them over and over again is the dilemma of what to tell their employees, especially how much to tell them, when the company is in crisis. The client is usually certain that the crisis will pass, and the organization will thrive once again. So am I. Still, we both know that, while maneuvering a company through a rocky part of the river, every decision weighs heavy on the shoulders of the person at the helm.
With the help of advisors, the leader of the organization will put together a plan for getting through the rough patch. Now, I grant you, sometimes those plans change daily as new data emerges. That alone may be the reason a CEO is reluctant to let everyone in on the plan. There is a fear that, if employees see the survival plan changing, they will be even more anxious, and their trust in the leadership will corrode. It’s a difficult spot for a business owner to be in, and can have her up at night talking to the moon through the dark windows.
Some CEOs fear that if people in the organization know the truth, they may jump ship. Others are afraid that if they level with their employees, the word will get out in the community and among their competitors, that things are looking bad. Probably others, even unconsciously, surmise that if they keep the bad news close to the vest, it is less real.
As they wrestle with the dilemmas, of course they are making decisions daily – decisions that have an impact on everyone in the organization. The decisions are tied to the "plan" even if it is necessary to alter that plan frequently as things change in the environment.
You know the type of painful decisions that accompany hard times in business. What can we jettison that isn’t absolutely essential? Or whom will we have to lay off or terminate in order to pay our bills, and make the minimum payments on the line of credit at the bank? How will they react to a freeze in raises? A freeze in hiring?
We’ve all read about the CEOs in the news who are raking off millions while cutting everyone else to the bone. In our own backyard, and among the business owners you know, it is much more likely that the CEO is cutting his own salary first, postponing his own vacation first, adding five years onto his retirement date.
So along with all the other hard decisions, the leadership must decide what and when to communicate to the organization. What to write into the "state of the company" speech that employees are searching for daily during tight times.
There is no perfect answer. I only know for sure that without a lot of communication, employees – who are hyper-alert during a crisis – will begin to see random acts that terrify them. An office down the hall is empty. The semi-annual retreat is canceled. No one is being interviewed to fill vacancies. The CEO is acting jittery and closing her door for telephone calls.
When we aren’t in on the plan, our imaginations go wild: What does that mean? What does this mean? We grasp for comfort by articulating our fears to co-workers, which offers no comfort at all, just crumbling performance. Time is wasted in a clumsy search for meaning.
So, even though there are no perfect answers, the strategies I work out with my clients at least include respect for all the people in the organization. There is risk in disclosure. There is, I believe, more risk in subterfuge.
So the strategies include open communication. There is no other way that exudes respect for each person in the organization. Open communication means putting your dilemma right there on the table. "I’m afraid when I tell you that we have to freeze salaries. I’m afraid that some of you will opt out, that one of our competitors will lure you away with an enticing offer."
You share your plan for steering the organization through the shoals. You also share the fact that this plan might be changed by Monday if emerging data suggests a better way to go. You share your faith, grounded in hard data, that your company will survive; yea, it will thrive, if the entire team pulls together through the challenging times. And you present that hard data, so that your colleagues can evaluate the situation for themselves.
Then they have something to go on. Sure, they are free to choose their own pathways during the crisis. And yes, some may leave for what they perceive as a safer vessel. When you stack it all up, though, until someone convinces me otherwise, the more information they have, the better choices they will make. I believe everyone working in business today very likely feels the same way.
Jo Hawkins Donovan has a coaching and psychotherapy firm in Whitefish Bay, and can be reached at 414-332-0300, or jo@hawkinsdonovan.comThe firm’s Web site is www.hawkinsdonovan.com. Hawkins Donovan will respond to your questions in this column. Her column appears in every other issue of SBT.
Oct. 25, 2002 Small Business Times, Milwaukee
