I’ve spoken to a lot of CEOs recently, and the one question I hear over and over is, “What is the best way to lead my team through this tumultuous time?” Here are the main points I cover with them:
- Be clear with your entire team that the direction has not changed, but we will have to navigate this crisis together.
- Over-communicate the plan to get through this crisis.
- The leadership team should disproportionately share in any financial sacrifices that need to be made (if any).
- If your business is negatively impacted to the point your team members don’t have enough work to do, use this time to improve processes, systems, products, services and anything else that helps you hit the ground running when everyone gets back to business.
One of the most valuable leadership traits is instilling confidence in others, especially in uncertain times. Our team members look to us for confidence in our plan and in their ability to execute. The more stress and uncertainty we show, the less focused our team will be on doing what needs to be done.
A great way to instill confidence in your team is to ensure they are doing the right work at the right time and in the right order to create the most value for their team and the company. We have to help our team members identify and want to do the right kind of work, and they need to feel successful. There are two essential questions that can help set them up for this:
1) What is the Most Important Number for each team?
We invest in for-profit businesses in order to make a good return on our investment. Businesses invest in people and teams in order to gain a good return on those investments, leading to creating more value as a company. And all employees and teams need to create significantly more value than they are being paid (including the resources they consume) for the business to sustain profitable growth.
As this question is considered, leaders should help their teams consider:
- Why did the company invest in our team?
- What is the one number above all others that demonstrates we are winning or losing as team?
- If you were going to invest your family’s entire life savings in your team, how would you know you are earning a good return on that investment?
2) What work must each team focus on to improve their Most Important Number?
Once the Most Important Number is identified, then the task becomes even more difficult. Teams must now identify the work and Drivers that can be leveraged by the team to improve their Most Important Number. That may include areas like marketing, sales, operations, employee development, supply chain, positioning to scale, quality, customer service, business processes and more.
As each area of focused work is identified, leaders should ask:
How well are we leveraging each Driver to improve our Most Important Number?
Which two or three Drivers should we focus on today to make the biggest improvement with our Most Important Number?
Of course, challenge is not new to business. But a leader’s response matters and the work everyone does to overcome each challenge may very well require new ideas and approaches. Focusing teams on the right numbers and work matters now more than ever, and, using these two questions, teams have the opportunity to stay focused.
What are the Most Important Numbers for each of your teams and how well are they doing the work of improving them? How would you rate yourself on instilling confidence?
Lee Benson is CEO of ETW
ETW helps teams work better together by improving what’s most important. Our team has developed the Most Important Number Drivers (MIND) Methodology to help determine the most important number for your team to achieve and uncover the right work that drives that number. We get results through simple, sustainable changes to how your team meets, communicates, and approaches work. To learn more visit https://etw.com.
