Lockdown lessons: avoid rose-tinted tales

Many stories will come out of lockdown. Stories of crisis. Stories of heroism. Much to be learnt. In the board minutes of UK Plc there is so much rich material that is beneficial for leaders, commentators, academics and research institutes to digest and craft management guides and crisis management for dummies guides from.

It is important that we learn quickly and act on those lessons now. Never has there been a greater need for an agile management response, yet I've heard some leaders say that now is not the time to review. Too busy in crisis mode. I disagree wholeheartedly. During times of crisis the need for act, review and react at pace is critical when steering unknown paths and moving targets. To not review, to not learn is negligent, blind navigation and corporate suicide. Don't kid yourself that you're too busy. It'll bite back later.

Rose-tinted specs

By leaving the review process until later, leaders often have time to repaint 'the narrative' and see the world through 'rose-tinted specs'. You will hear stories of recovery and failure, success and hardship over the coming months that will miss vital ingredients because the author forgot critical aspects or chose not to include certain events in their story. I'm sure they will be very entertaining, but not insightful and will lack the accuracy of exactly how it was for everyone ... we will glean a few soundbytes ... we learn little.

During lockdown I've spent time reading psychology. Brain science and human behaviour is a bit of a pet subject of mine. We know that memory isn't simply a record of what happened. Memories are often reconstructed. Just ask Frederick Charles Bartlett and his study 'The War of the Ghosts'. Memory records a certain amount and then we fill in the gaps with false memories coloured by our experiences and emotions. This reconstructs memories which aren't always 100% accurate. They are reformed with a narrative that suits us.

Now, if everyone in the organisation captured their stories, would they all align? How was it for Michelle the CEO? How was it for Don the main equity stake? How was it for Baldeep in legal? How was it for Dave in security? Do these lessons align?

Those lessons then:

• Did you learn that some people excelled yet others were missing or found wanting?

• Did you learn more about your financial and supply chain resilience?

• Did you learn about your board's real risk appetite?

• Did you learn about your businesses ability to act and react?

• Did you discover areas of significant under investment and parts of your cost base that have frankly been frivolous in the past?

How true is your account?

Remove the weakest link

Have you acted on everything you have learnt? Or are you going to leave it until the dust has settled before you review? I guarantee that you will have forgotten 50% of the critical detail.

A business is only as strong as its weakest link. Lockdown will have massively stress tested your people, your supply chains, your balance sheets and your customers loyalty. Weaknesses will have been glaringly obvious. They need fixing and should not be simply accepted as too tricky to deal with.

Applying an agile mindset; reviewing and acting on these failures now will recalibrate your business and make it fit for recovery.

Act now. Review it. Correct it. Fix it.

#COVID #lockdown #recovery #crisismanagement