"Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set ocircumstances, to choose one’s own way.” (Austrian psychiatrist, Viktor Frankl, in his book: ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’)
Many countries have been fervently hoping that over two billion CovidD-19 vaccines would provide protection, relief and a return to some kind of normalcy at home, in public and in the office but the recent surge in active cases – now over 14 million worldwide - and deaths – now over four million worldwide - is stifling these hopes and posing a very challenging, fresh problem for leaders at all levels in all organizations.
How do you keep those who depend on you hopeful, motivated and productive when faced with the threat and/or the reality of a new form of "Long Covid”, which can permeate not just our bodies but also our minds and our souls as we fear that the proverbial ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ is another oncoming train?
To avoid any kind of despair, resignation or withdrawal in a modern-day work context, leaders may well need to revisit the crisis leadership strategies that they hopefully employed as the pandemic first struck 16 months ago - https://www.newtimes.co.rw/opinions/leading-rwanda-acting-decisively-time-crisis.
It certainly seems that these eight steps are still very relevant today:
1. Stay healthy (mentally, emotionally and spiritually, as well as physically).
2. Role model healthy behaviours.
3. Project calm, dignity, authority and focus.
4. Communicate openly and regularly.
5. Show genuine empathy.
6. Demonstrate flexibility and agility.
7. Make tough decisions.
8. Take tough action.
Numbers six, seven and four – Flexibility, Decisiveness and Communication - will remain particularly important as leaders sift through the plethora of misinformation and disinformation about what is required, recommended or just optional in relation to Covid precautions and prevention and then decide if, how and when policies need to change; how this might impact staff, customers, etc.; and how and when to communicate this to whom.
In addition, leaders may need to come up with even more creative and innovative ways to deal with such things as ‘Zoom Fatigue’ as most or even all meetings may have to remain virtual for an indefinite period.
As well as some of the recommendations in this recent article here are some ideas for keeping things virtually fresh and focused in between - or even during - regular, more formal long-distance meetings:
1. Rotate leaders for all or part of a meeting.
2. Ask two or more people to co-plan and -facilitate meetings.
3. Plan special meetings on new relevant topics, such as less common teambuilding assessments and tools, such as the Enneagram or Archetypes.
4. Devise new team cohesion exercises. Don’t just share a coffee or a meal together on screen but actually cook something together live, with one of the team providing a shopping list and then showing the others how to make a delicious starter or main course.
5. Give people fun pre-work, such as finding a particular ‘show and tell’ object in their homes that represents such things as ‘teamwork’ or ‘success’ to them.
6. Inject a new brief icebreaker or energizer at the start of the meeting.
7. Have fun with the individual screen backgrounds. Play a version of "I Spy” with real home offices in which people have to guess what is new or missing. Mix up virtual backgrounds with scenes from favorite movies or shows or mystery locations.
8. If colleagues don’t usually dress up for virtual meetings, have a "Dress-Up Friday” to be interpreted in any way they want (within certain limits).
9. If people are tired of being on camera for up to 10 meetings a day, allow them to mute both their audio and video when in listener mode while remaining focused on the speakers and content and contributing to the Chat.
10. Invite other ideas on virtual meetings and anything else from your team and even offer some kind of weekly or monthly recognition or reward for the most creative idea.
Hopefully, some of these actions can help keep people motivated during this extended Corona challenge but in the end, there is only so much that any one leader can do.
"I have told our managers not to spend too much time motivating employees. You have to create an environment where employees can motivate themselves. That is really important because self-motivation is more sustainable.”
These are the words of Eric Yuan, who is the founder of none other than Zoom!
jeremy@jeremysolomons.com
The views expressed in this article are of the writer