Leading businesses through the COVID-19 crisis

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Arthur D. Little Report Reveals Global CEOs’ First Learnings from COVID-19

Global management consultancy Arthur D. Little released first learnings from global CEOs in the telecoms, transport and utility industries who delivered critical infrastructure services in Asia and Italy during the early spread of COVID-19.

The Leading businesses through the COVID-19 crisis: First learnings from Hong Kong, Italy and Singapore Report is available free to help businesses facing the worst of COVID-19 deliver vital goods and services safely.

The report urges companies to put people before short-term profits, avoid step-by-step measures, delegate authorities, intensify employee communications efforts, and work closely with governments, authorities and communities.

“We can learn from one another, build resilience in our economy, and emerge from this crisis ready to innovate and restore,” said Ignacio García Alves, Chairman and CEO of Arthur D. Little. “This report gives CEOs unique peer-to-peer insight from leaders who maintained effective operations through the worst of the pandemic and are now emerging ready to rebuild.”

The report identifies five areas of focus:

  • Move fast, assume the worst, be comprehensive, and secure employee safety first and operational continuity next.
  • Be prepared to spend most of your time on employee communications, focus on positivity and morale, and listen as well as talk.
  • Create separate A and B teams for critical operations, support suppliers and ecosystem partners, and be innovative with cash management.
  • Collaborate with government and authorities, engage with unions, and support local communities.
  • Start realistically planning for recovery now, and take advantage of potential opportunities from the “new normal”.
  • The report also names key priorities for business continuity and risk management, including using digital tools to establish dynamic, sensing risk management systems across internal operations and external supply chains.

Karim Taga, Managing Partner of Arthur D. Little’s Global TIME Practice, said, “Today’s CEOs are being called to lead through this crisis and emerge ready for new opportunities. Companies, governments, and individuals must all focus on protecting public health and defeating this pandemic together.”

Saverio Caldani, Managing Partner of Arthur D. Little Italy and Spain, said, “As we work to support our clients in Italy through the worst of COVID-19, their experiences will help businesses everywhere navigate this new world.”

The report  summarizes the key areas participating organizations encountered unforeseen problems regardless of established crisis management and business continuity plans:

· Getting reliable information and intelligence: Especially in the early stages of a global pandemic, it is difficult to understand and align all parties around real facts and intelligence. Companies often partly relied on media reports. Having reliable data and intelligence is especially important for global companies, whose many local perceptions of the crisis may be very different.

· Velocity of the crisis: Several companies had not planned adequately for the rapid velocity with which the crisis escalated around the world. Companies found that some of the plans they had in place simply took too long to implement and were constantly being overtaken by events.

· Understanding the whole ecosystem: Some businesses found that their plans did not sufficiently consider the impact of the crisis on the suppliers and partners in their ecosystems, which then hit their own operations. This is of growing significance as companies’ operating models increasingly adopt an ecosystem-based approach.

· Coping with uncertainty: Companies traditionally feel comfortable if they can reduce or eliminate uncertainties, but in the COVID-19 crisis this is impossible. Companies have therefore found that agility and flexibility are critical, more so than they had anticipated in their plans.

In the future, it is clear that organizations will have to assess risk and have the ability to deal with crises that are far less predictable than what organizations currently plan for—months and sometimes years ahead. The report concludes with areas where firms can improve:

· More dynamic risk management approach: Risk management needs to be more dynamic in seeing and responding to signals across both internal operations and external supply chains to ensure the business is fully prepared for the threat. Digital tools are a key part of the solution to this.

· Stress-testing of business continuity plans: Those companies that have stress-tested their plans using relevant scenarios, such as pandemic outbreaks, have been able to respond much more effectively. Companies need to ensure that plans are regularly stress-tested to ensure they are fit for purpose in line with their existing operating models. As these models and associated key processes change, so should the plans.

· Better understanding of “risk velocity”: Many companies were caught off guard by the speed at which the pandemic risk impacted organizations. A better understanding of this dimension of risk, supported by a digital approach, would ensure that an organization could become more agile and dynamic in future crises.

· Workforce and supply chain as key risk factors: The crisis has highlighted supply-chain disruption and maintaining an effective, fit-for-purpose workforce as major risk factors.

Many of the leaders involved in the report expected they would need to diversify the supply chain diversification and include options closer to operations to avoid relying on lengthy and complex supply chains.

The full report is here: https://www.adlittle.com/en/COVID19_CEOFirstLearnings

3 Tips for Coping When Covid Closes Your Business

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Melissa Kjolsing and her brother Luke launched Recovree in 2018 with the goal of helping people recover from substance misuse. Recovree was just starting to see momentum when the pandemic hit the U.S. in early March, and business evaporated overnight. 

The company’s customers are primarily employers that offer Recovree’s tech-enabled services, which include peer support and recovery program recommendations delivered through its app, as a benefit to their staffs. In the wake of Covid-19, Recovree lost more than 90 percent of its projected revenue through canceled contracts, Kjolsing says. 

“It was like being cut off at the knees and kicked in the face,” says Kjolsing, CEO of the Minneapolis-based startup that booked $50,000 in revenue last year. “It was a complete devastation to the business.” 

Kjolsing, who will close her business permanently on July 31, is just one of many entrepreneurs who have been forced to shutter operations due to the coronavirus pandemic–and cope with the accompanying psychological effects. 

Economists estimate that more than 100,000 small businesses have closed permanently since March, according to a study in April by economists at the University of Illinois, Harvard Business School, Harvard University, and the University of Chicago. Since closing a startup prompts many painful discussions about employment, debt, and taking care of staff, the experience is extremely emotional for the founders.

“You’re not just selling a product, you’re selling your ability to create that product or company,” says Patrick FitzGerald, a serial entrepreneur, startup adviser, and lecturer at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. “If that fails, it’s not that your product didn’t work, but it feels that you didn’t work.” 

For those who have shut down operations–or for those who are considering it–here are three tips from experts on how to cope with the psychological effects.  

1. Take a break.

Entrepreneurs are resilient people, but even they need breaks, says John Gartner, a Baltimore-based psychotherapist who specializes in treating entrepreneurs. If you’ve recently closed your business, consider taking some time off before launching your next idea to give yourself the time and space to grieve, he says. “The entrepreneur whose business is ending does need a second business,” says Gartner, who wrote about founders in his 2005 book The Hypomanic Edge: The Link Between (a Little) Craziness and (a Lot of) Success in America. “But it can’t be a way to escape the grief of the first one ending.” 

Then, after you’ve processed the grief, use the intermission to talk to people in the field you want to enter next and to study that market. Approaching your next venture systematically–and not impulsively–will ensure your success, he adds. 

2. Know that you’re in demand.

While you may feel like a failure, most people don’t see you in that light, says FitzGerald.  In fact, there are many companies that recruit former entrepreneurs because of their courage, expertise, and ability to start something from nothing, he adds. If you’re not ready to start something new, consider lending your experience and knowledge to another business–at least until you get your next idea. 

3. Share your story. 

You’re not alone in this experience, and it may be beneficial to share your story, says FitzGerald. Consider writing about what you felt and learned on public platforms such as social-media sites, he advises. It will provide some catharsis and the opportunity to connect with other entrepreneurs. 

“You’re doing a greater good by passing that knowledge along,” FitzGerald says. “Put it out there so people can react to it.” 

3 Smart Tips for Successfully Managing Remote Teams

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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

This article was written by Mitchell Terpstra, an Entrepreneur NEXT powered by Assemble expert. If you are looking to take the NEXT step in your business then we encourage you to check out Entrepreneur NEXT powered by Assemble.

Consider for a moment the current nine-to-five, butts-in-seats paradigm of American work life. Where did it come from?

The first wave of the Industrial Revolution took off in the textile factories of Great Britain in the 18th century. Workers were needed to operate looms that would spin cotton, linen or wool on a mass scale into yarn used to make garments, rugs, upholstery, and other products.

Productivity depended on human bodies congregating under one roof and attending to machinery. Human dexterity or decision-making was needed to help the machines generate maximum output while also overseeing quality control. This became the default arrangement for numerous sectors of industry.

Nowadays that script is flipped. Outside the manufacturing sector, most workers no longer need to congregate within the same four walls to attend to big, cumbersome machinery. In fact, today’s digital tools, rather than demanding attendance, largely free employees of the need to be confined under one roof. Welcome to the dispersed workplace.

Prior to COVID-19, around 5 percent of employed Americans worked from home or worked remotely. At the height of the pandemic’s stay-at-home orders, that percentage jumped to 62 percent.

What’s more, three in five said they want to keep working remotely, if possible.

If you’re an entrepreneur who suddenly finds yourself in charge of managing a remote team of employees, here are three areas to focus on to set your team up for success.

1. Communicate, communicate, communicate.

Communication is more than 90 percent of managing remote teams. However, with team members working from outside a common workspace, numerous communication methods are suddenly off the table.

Sticky-note reminders, office doorway chats, phone intercom updates, ad hoc roundtables and dozens of other little in-person communication methods are no longer available options. Without all these options at your disposal, communication may get haphazard or careless at times, allowing assumptions to replace clear direction in your team members’ minds and throwing projects off track.

As your team members shift to working remotely, your communication methods will have to adapt, too. Recognize the importance of streamlining your communications so that the transmission of important info is as efficient as possible, team members stay up-to-date on projects, and everyone feels accountable without becoming completely overwhelmed by a deluge of calls, emails, chats, and so on.

Relatedly, many managers often frustrate team members by choosing an inappropriate communication method. We’ve all heard the “meeting that could’ve been an email” complaint. Avoid being that team leader by considering, is this mostly a passing-off of information that’s self-explanatory? Go with email. Or is there important back and forth needed to generate ideas and build consensus? Better go with a conference call or video chat. One specific advantage of video chat is the ability for team members to pick up on the many non-verbal cues that are absent from written communication.

On the other hand, one advantage of email is the ability to archive important messages, search by keywords and retrieve when needed. However, free apps like Otter are bringing this functionality to conference calls as well. Otter can record your team’s voice conversations and provide automated transcripts based on those recordings, giving your team members a searchable document for retrieving key info later when they need it.

2. Make sure your team is properly resourced.

At your company, how much of new employee’s first day or week is typically spent introducing them to all the resources, equipment, and helpful personnel? From ergonomic office chairs to help-yourself snack bars, the first few workdays have the excited aura of an elementary school show-and-tell session.

Yet all that resource-thinking tends to go out the window with remote workers. Granted, part of the advantage of remote workers is cutting costs, including on office space and related resources. And, of course, this isn’t to suggest you need to ship an expensive espresso machine to every one of your remote workers. But their obstacles to success are your obstacles. Part of your check-ins with team members should be making sure they have all the tools they need to facilitate workflow and achieve the best work they’re capable of. Asking them to be reflective about their workflow and identify hangups to productivity may make it clear what resources may be in order.

It’s also important to consider there may be a difference between your more seasoned remote workers and team members who have been thrown into remote work for the first time due to COVID-19. The latter may not be accustomed to thinking about structuring their own workspace for comfort, productivity, and workflow.

It may not be getting them set up with a standing desk of their own. It might just be as simple as setting their computer on top of a stack of books. Even small enhancements, like a WiFi booster, noise-cancelling headphones or a better camera if they’re presenting to clients on your behalf, may make a huge difference.

3. Foster team spirit.

Let’s face it: people want to belong. Particularly for Americans, work is one of the leading ways by which we choose to define ourselves and where we seek a sense of belonging. Many psychologists have pointed out that employees tend to keep working for companies when they have positive relationships with their coworkers, and productivity often increases as well.

That sense of belonging gets complicated when coworkers are dispersed and meaningful face-to-face interactions are minimized. Even the workplace’s cheesier moments—the obligatory birthday celebrations, watercooler pow-wows, the rush to snag free donuts in the breakroom, etc.—are powerful contributors to making people feel they belong.

Without these possibilities for connection, remote working adds to the likelihood that team members may feel isolated from one another and less aligned with the mission of the organization. In fact, according to Buffer’s “State of the Remote Report,” loneliness was the second most-cited answer from respondents when asked about their struggles with working remotely.

To keep that sense of camaraderie alive that helps teams work well together, team leaders should create opportunities for team members to bring their fuller selves into remote workplace interactions. Remote workplace interactions often fail prey to being all work, all the time.

Team leaders should create channels where coworkers can interact on a more personal level, perhaps for sharing common interests, establishing helpful mentor-mentee relationships or celebrating milestones.

If the workforce is split between office and remote workers, keep in mind that remote workers might feel like second-class employees, only there to submit completed tasks. Consider giving them more leadership roles to balance out that perceived, even if inaccurate, sense of importance in the organization’s eyes.

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Technology in the Pandemic: Recreate the Office or Repurpose It?

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The pandemic has forced companies to adapt quickly to new realities, including shifting to virtual work arrangements and rethinking short- and long-term business priorities. It has also amplified the role of managers to help employees shape their work lives in effective and healthy ways.

In the office, we socialize on the fly, flit from meeting to meeting seamlessly, and establish routines and patterns that not only work for us but jell with those of others. One of the important decisions that managers confront now, as working remotely becomes standard practice, is how to use technology to recreate these dynamics. Should they attempt to replicate life as it was in brick-and-mortar offices, or does the drastic switch to virtual work necessitate that they try something different?

As the initial shock of the pandemic begins to wane, now is the time to consider how to balance strategically what work used to be and what it is now. We provide a series of ideas for managers on how to approach these considerations as remote work becomes the norm for the foreseeable future — and perhaps even permanently.

Recreate or Repurpose Office Life?

One of the authors of this article, Eliana, studied the post-bankruptcy reactions of former Lehman Brothers bankers. She found that disruptive events that profoundly alter work circumstances often prompt people to feel a sense of loss and void, akin to what people feel when they mourn the loss of a loved one.

At a minimum, the shift to virtual work has left workers bereft of a common place, of unplanned interactions with their coworkers, and of the vicarious learning opportunities that colocation promotes. As one senior manager at a large educational institution explained to us recently, “I miss bumping into people I do not directly work with, catching up with them in the hallway. … For me, now it’s just not the same. I feel I’m missing context. It’s almost as if I do not know my colleagues as much anymore.” Another employee we interviewed, who started her new job just days before switching to remote work, told us, “I’m trying to learn what I’m supposed to do as best I can. I miss shadowing my colleagues who have more experience.”

Workers all around the world are grieving a host of aspects related to how, where, and when they used to work.

The study of former Lehman Brothers employees found that in the face of void and loss, workers — even those on the same team — may mourn unexpected loss differently. The Lehman employees approached their post-bankruptcy work lives in two distinct ways. Some, Recreators, craved the safety of their former work lives. These bankers tried to revive what they had at Lehman by pursuing similar work opportunities — often with some of their former colleagues — and holding on to the close-knit relationships they had developed while at the company. Others, Repurposers, craved the control that they had over their former work lives. These bankers held on to the spirit of what they had at Lehman but did not try to replicate it. Rather, they repurposed the skills and knowledge they had acquired and pursued different careers, often as entrepreneurs.

These two approaches provide important clues to how managers might try to better understand and manage their now remote employees.

Consider Alicia and Dan. Before going virtual, their days looked approximately the same. Today, both are performing at the same level, but their work situations are very different. Alicia is a Recreator. She currently holds the same schedule as before COVID-19. The only difference for her? Instead of meeting face to face, she meets her colleagues and clients via Zoom, from her home. She even has virtual drinks with her coworkers at the end of the workday. Now consider Dan, a Repurposer. He checks in with his colleagues and clients via email and text periodically throughout the day but completes most of his actual client work at night.

Recreating and repurposing fulfill different needs for employees, especially in times of grief. For Alicia, recreating provides a sense of safety in a time of uncertainty. By keeping the same schedule and regularly meeting with colleagues virtually, she preserves the rhythms of the daily life she had before COVID-19. For Dan, repurposing is about reimagining the execution of tasks to separate the “what” from the “how.” Adjusting and time-blocking his new schedule ultimately provides him with a sense of control over his work life.

Companies and managers are seeing these mechanisms play out for their employees in different ways. For example, if face-to-face team meetings are about checking in with one another, Repurposers might maintain some meetings but transform how they happen: They might, for instance, institute asynchronous discussion boards for their teams, as opposed to arranging synchronous virtual calls.

So, how should managers make the choice of recreating or repurposing?

Understand Employees’ Needs and Constraints

Remember that people are coping with sudden, unexpected loss in individual ways. What employees need most from their managers and colleagues, and what they are finding most challenging, will vary from person to person. Have honest conversations with your own employees about what they most miss from being in the office and what their current constraints are. Do they miss the safety and regularity of routine? If so, work with them to recreate certain aspects of their work lives. For example, they might have started each morning with a cup of coffee and small talk in the break room. Offer to host a virtual morning break room with your team to simulate that routine. Do they miss the ability to control their work environment and to concentrate without other family members around? If so, work with them to repurpose. For instance, allow them flexibility in when they work (for example, before or after their children go to bed) and how (for example, reduce asynchronous meetings during the daytime).

Balance Recreating With Repurposing Through Technology

Working virtually allows employees to choose whether to repurpose or recreate their office lives. Rather than leaving this choice solely in their hands, such that each person on a team may approach his or her work differently, consider setting a company or team strategy that offers guidance. To do so, you might brainstorm with your employees about the aspects of office life they individually miss, and then help them either recreate or repurpose such aspects. A framework for such a conversation might be as simple as these two questions: Is there anything from your work life pre-COVID-19 that you no longer have but would help you meet your professional and/or personal goals? How might we incorporate that based on your current life?

It is also important to recognize the limits of recreating and repurposing. Giving employees complete autonomy over recreating or repurposing may ultimately erode their ability to form and maintain regular cadence with coworkers. The second author of this article, Beth, researched virtual workers and found that having consistent cadence with coworkers — being able to predict the time and mode of interacting — determines the quality of remote workers’ relationships. To foster such cadences, consider instituting virtual collective routines, such using collaboration tools and discussion forums to clarify when employees are available and when they are not.

Finally, recreating is unlikely to bring back the face-to-face office experience, and it may be difficult (or even impossible) when individuals are trying to balance additional duties — such as home schooling their children. Setting realistic expectations for a recreating strategy is thus critical. Because repurposing shifts the focus of work from process to outcomes, recreating can be particularly challenging to enact when work is highly collaborative and interdependent — especially when there are Recreators and Repurposers working together toward the same goal. Communicating expectations, deadlines, and processes clearly is thus especially critical.

Honor That We Are All ‘Novice Experts’ Right Now

It takes thousands of hours of practice — and constant feedback on performance — to become an expert at anything, including being a virtual worker. As you and your employees navigate this monumental switch, think of yourselves as “novice experts” — people who are expected to have mastered being expert virtual workers without the requisite experience of being an expert. This means that although you may have a general strategy to repurpose or recreate, preferences might shift from repurposing to recreating and vice versa as employees better understand the pros and cons of each approach. As a manager, being patient and supportive when preferences shift and mistakes happen will foster a psychologically safe environment in which your employees will likely better cope with their uncertainty and grief.

At its core, dealing with sudden and unexpected loss is about holding on and letting go. Having honest conversations with your employees — and setting a clear strategy for recreating, repurposing, or a combination of the two — will help you manage through this uncertain time and prepare more effectively for this new age of virtual work.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Eliana Crosina is an assistant professor of entrepreneurship at Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts. Beth Schinoff is an assistant professor of management and organization at Boston College in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts.

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5 Tips for Hiring and Team Building Remotely

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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

The entire world changed in a few short weeks this spring. A global health crisis catalyzed an economic recession, and uncertainty began impacting entrepreneurs and startups everywhere. As a startup founder, I’ve seen firsthand the importance of finding innovative ways to adapt your business to new situations, while continuing to have a “people-first” mentality. 

I run a company that helps people assess their insurance options. Prior to the pandemic, we planned to double in size by the end of this year, and we’re lucky that we’re still on track to meet that goal. But for anyone fortunate enough to be hiring right now, we’ve discovered that recruiting and onboarding on new talent is a whole new reality, with a whole new set of considerations. We’ve pivoted our interviewing and hiring to be fully remote, and here are some lessons we learned along the way.

1. Invest in your people first

From both a hiring and retention perspective, supporting your existing team is a strategic function of your business. While every startup’s needs are different, you can — and should — prioritize creating a positive experience for current and potential employees to attract the best new talent.  

Related: Hiring Remote Workers? Here’s What to Consider First.

2. Utilize shared resources

Companies across the world are dealing with change at an unprecedented pace. One estimate places the number of laid-off startup employees at more than 30,000 since March 11 — and that’s just at startups. With so many people looking for work, regular reports are issued about companies still hiring during this outbreak. If you’re hiring, reach out to relevant outlets to see how to add your company to these lists. 

It’s also important to personally connect with your community, whether that’s with your peer network, other companies in your city or checking out community boards. Doing this can help you crowdsource new resources, like opt-in layoff lists for talent, and give you an outlet to share challenges. 

3. Acknowledge (and adapt to) the human toll of this moment 

People are dealing with tremendous challenges, from parents juggling childcare responsibilities alongside full-time remote work to the general anxiety that prolonged isolation can bring. Rather than gloss over those realities, openly acknowledge them in interviews and onboarding. 

Studies on organizational transformation have found communication is the most important factor for success. Communicating right now may look different, but it’s critical. Share regular updates with candidates and employees, early and often, even when you don’t have all the answers. Candidates are now frequently asking how companies are dealing with COVID-19. Proactively share your organization’s policies, so candidates feel a greater sense of certainty about your business. Encourage two-way dialogue, empowering people to ask questions and share concerns. 

Related: What Nobody Tells You About Remote Work

4. Create new experiences tailored for virtual life

It’s impossible to fully recreate an in-person experience virtually, so it’s important to adjust accordingly. Experts are noticing heightened “video-call fatigue,” a feeling that virtual meetings are more exhausting than in-person meetings due to nonverbal overload. If you can extend your interview process over a few days to give interviewers a break, do it. Scheduling is easier now, as commute times and overbooked conference rooms have evaporated. To add a welcome atmosphere, consider having a candidate’s recruiter join their video interview for a few minutes early to help test out their technology and answer any logistical questions, similar to how someone might greet them at the door if they were interviewing in-person. Make sure candidates meet a group of their future coworkers — since no matter where you’re working from, it’s the people who truly define company culture. 

5. Connect with each other and share the laughs 

For a new employee who’s never met the team in-person, creating an early sense of psychological safety is incredibly important. To assist with building that bond, prioritize opportunities to integrate new team members from day one. 

Consider implementing engagement opportunities like casual “working sessions” that replicate an in-office atmosphere. For example, we’ve set up group virtual coffee meetings and designed fun new activities, like a “Bring Your Kids to Work” show-and-tell session to keep employees engaged and experiencing social connections even while physically separated. We also instituted regular leadership office hours to support our employees and a bi-weekly company survey to understand how employees are feeling and how we can better support them. 

Ultimately, this is a universal time of change and adjustment, and things won’t always go smoothly. From shipping disruptions that make it challenging to get tech equipment to new hires before their first day, to the devastating human impact of this crisis, the ramifications of COVID-19 are wide-ranging and here to stay for a while. But in the middle of all of this, there’s still opportunity for growth, innovation and some much-needed laughs with your team. 

Related: These 50 Companies Are Growing and Hiring Remotely Right Now

Five ways to design a better mental-health future for a stressed-out workforce

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By Liz Hilton Segel
We know that mental health occurs along a continuum, with thriving and positive mental health at one end and serious mental illnesses or addictions at the other. In between, however, there are many shades of substance use, anxiety, depression, and other conditions that vary in intensity and impact. Every leader must ask, “What are we doing to help our employees stay physically and emotionally healthy?”
 

Far from being a soft issue, there is an economic cost to this humanitarian clarion call. For the global economy, the loss of productivity because of poor mental health can be as high as $1 trillion per year.2 The pandemic has also created a disproportionate mental toll on women in the workplace, causing one in four senior-level women to consider leaving the workforce or downshifting their careers since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Businesses need to do more to help employees cope during these turbulent times. Consider the following actions, where we’re beginning to see impact based on feedback from our clients’ employees and our own colleagues at McKinsey.

Open the lines of communication

Demonstrate commitment from the top and lead by example, communicating that during the COVID-19 crisis and beyond, it is important to address stress, mental illness, and substance use.

This can start with “pulse checks”—emails sent to employees that ask two or three short questions about their work, life, mentorship, and health. Or it could be as simple as, “How are you feeling?” and “What’s giving you the greatest stress this week?” Always provide a reminder on how to access mental-health resources and professional help for those in immediate crisis.

Understand and meet the need

Understand the impact of psychological distress, mental illnesses, and substance-use disorders on the workforce. This includes using employee surveys, benefits reports, disability claims, and productivity assessments.

While anecdotes can illustrate the human impact of mental illness, at McKinsey, we also look at metrics and data, all of which are anonymized and confidential. This aggregate information can pinpoint which departments have employees with higher rates of distress. Further, an analysis of disability claims and benefit reports can allow insights into whether we are meeting employees’ needs.

Know the signs of distress

Invest in training to equip leaders with the skills, language, and norms to support your colleagues.

Twenty years ago, when someone on my team told me he had to take leave to address his mental health, I was crushed: I completely missed the distress signals and wasn’t there to support him when he needed it most. It is a deep regret and learning moment I hold with me to this day. It is also why I’m so committed to the mental-health training we are rolling out for our leaders.

Consider a short training for team leaders that focuses on recognizing signs of distress, making clear that it’s driven by a genuine desire to connect employees with the right support and resources. When companies make mental health a priority, teams can, in turn, offer greater value to their customers or clients. For example, one of our recent projects at McKinsey involved helping interested members of a medical staff receive 90-minute training sessions on building team resilience and deepening relationships.

Make help available

Embrace strategies to address key stressors, improve behavioral-health literacy, promote mental wellness, and prevent substance misuse.

Make it easy to access help, ensuring that everything from self-help tools to high-quality treatment providers are visible, affordable, and available virtually as well as in person. Be clear about which options for mental health are available via telehealth services.

Embrace and encourage self-care

Create an inclusive culture where those seeking treatment and self-care are supported, recovery is celebrated, and social connectivity is a priority.

Maintain an open dialogue. Ask if your colleagues are taking regular breaks, prioritizing sleep, and checking in on one another. My teams make it a point to discuss what we’re doing over the weekend, how we’re staying healthy, and whether we’re all getting enough rest.

As the lines of our personal and work spaces blur, I remind my team to take extra care for renewal and try to lead by example. That means unplugging and finding family or individual activities that restore the spirit. Recently, in my house, that has meant bringing a journal to the dinner table each night so that my husband, daughter, and I can write a line of gratitude—no repeats! Whether it’s reflection, reading, exercise, or spending time with our family, it is up to us to practice self-care and show vulnerability by admitting our own struggles.

This isn’t going to be easy, and there’s not a one-size-fits-all solution. It will require us to learn an entire new vocabulary on mental health, and many organizations will have to undertake large structural and cultural transformations. But even when the challenges seem great, I know we can lift each other up. Every day, I draw inspiration from my colleagues. I know you do, too. It’s up to us to harness that inspiration into tangible change that can address mental health across the workforce.

This article was published by Fast Company on October 27, 2020.

What Business Can Learn from Supermarkets’ Pandemic Playbooks

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Jennifer Spencer
ENTREPRENEUR LEADERSHIP NETWORK VIP
 

Businesses across the board are struggling to meet the new demands put forth due to Covid. Increasing sales while decreasing operational costs is not an easy feat. However, the country’s nearly 40,000 grocery stores, classified an essential service during the pandemic, have had to adapt quickly without any downtime. 

Only about 3 to 4 percent of grocery spending in the U.S. was online before the pandemic, but that’s surged to 10 to 15 percent, according to research by consulting firm Bain & Company. And in some cases, it’s much greater than that. 

“Early on during the pandemic, we saw a 300 percent increase, on average, in online grocery sales among our clients compared to the same time period last year. Some of our clients successfully handled much larger online sales spikes. A single location gourmet market in Brooklyn, New York, for example, went from $53,000 to $388,000 weekly online sales at the height of the pandemic,” says Dan Dashevsky, COO of My Cloud Grocer, an ecommerce software platform for supermarket chains. The company offers a robust, customizable virtual storefront with a white-label platform that powers and integrates the full shopping experience.

As the current pandemic dramatically changes the landscape of retail around the world, smart grocers are utilizing technology to grow their sales while safeguarding their customers. Let’s look at the technology and tactics businesses are using, not only to stay afloat during these troubled times but to thrive. 

Customer needs and their experience must come first 

The customer experience should always be the driving force that determines how a website operates or which policies a company will enforce, but unfortunately. that is not always the case. During the pandemic, customers have complained that they’ve had to wait days or even weeks to receive grocery deliveries — not an ideal scenario when supplies are low and the need is greater. 

“Many online grocery platforms are only showing available delivery times at checkout — after customers have spent 20-40 minutes filling their carts with products — causing additional frustration for customers when they realize they can’t get their groceries within a reasonable time and on top of that, they’ve also wasted their time,” says Dashevsky. “We made sure that our clients’ platforms display the available delivery and pickup times as soon as shoppers add the first item to their cart.”

Wheel of Confidence

Why Forcing Employees Out Of Their Comfort Zones Achieves Greatness

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Diverse teams are smarter teams. They have higher rates of innovation, error detection and creative problem solving.

In environments that possess diverse stakeholders, being able to have different perspectives in the room may even enable more alignment with varied customer needs.

Being able to think from different perspectives actually lights up areas of the brain, such as the emotional centres needed for perspective taking that would previously not be activated in similar or non-diverse groups.

In a nutshell, you use more of your brain when you encourage different perspectives by including different views in the room. However, work done at the NeuroLeadership Institute has proven that this only works when diverse teams are inclusive, and this still remains a key challenge in business today.

When we consider the amount of diversity present in the modern workplace and the addition of more diverse thinking as a result of globalisation and the use of virtual work teams, it’s clear that the ability to unlock the power of diversity is just waiting to be unleashed.

Here’s how you can unlock this powerful performance driver.

The Social Brain

Despite the rich sources of diversity present in most workplaces, companies are still often unable to leverage the different perspectives available to them in driving business goals. Recent breakthroughs in neuroscience have enabled us to understand why.The major breakthrough has centred around the basic needs of the social brain.  We have an instinctual need to continually define whether we are within an in-group or an out-group.

This is an evolutionary remnant of the brain that enabled us to strive to remain within a herd or group where we had access to social support structures, food and potential mates.

If we were part of the out-group it could literally have meant life or death. We are therefore hypersensitive to feelings of exclusion as it affected our survival.

The brain is further hardwired for threat and unconsciously scans our environments for threats five times a second. This means, coupled with our life or death need for group affiliation, we are hypersensitive to finding sameness and a need for in-group inclusion.

When we heard a rustle in a bush it was safer to assume that it may be a lion than a gust of wind. It is this threat detection network that has kept us alive until today.The challenge is that society has developed faster than our brains. In times of uncertainty we often jump to what is more threatening. Some of the ways that this plays out is when we leave someone out of an email and they begin to wonder why they were left out.

The problem is that it’s easy to unconsciously exclude someone if we are not actively including. The trouble occurs when we incorrectly use physical proxies to define in-group and out-group, as this is the most readily available evidence used unconsciously by the brain.

Barriers to Inclusion

A study done between a diverse group and non-diverse group demonstrates how this plays out in the work place. Both groups completed a challenging task and were asked how they felt they did as a team after the exercise.

The effectiveness of the team and how they perceived effectiveness were both measured in the study. It’s no surprise that the diverse team did better in the completion of the problem-solving task, but what is surprising is that they felt they did not do well.

In contrast, the non-diverse team did worse, but felt that they had done well. Working in a diverse team feels uncomfortable and that’s why we perform better.

Discomfort arouses our brain, which leads to better performance. It feels easier to work in a team where we feel at ease in sameness, but in that environment we are more prone to groupthink and are less effective.

Creating Inclusion

We can’t assume that when we place diverse teams together we will automatically reap the rewards of higher team performance. As discussed, we’re hardwired for sameness and if we’re not actively including, we may be unconsciously excluding.

If we want diversity to become a silver bullet, we need to actively make efforts to find common ground amongst disparate team members. This in turn will build team cohesion and create a sense of unity, including reminders of a shared purpose and shared goals. Many global businesses put an emphasis on a shared corporate culture that supersedes individual difference.

It’s the same mechanism that is used in science fiction films that bond individuals together against a common alien invasion. It can also be used to describe why we felt such a great sense of accomplishment during the 2010 World Cup as we banded together as a nation. 

We must also make sure we uplift all team members by sharing credit widely when available and recognising performance. The last thing we can do to further inclusion is to create clarity for teams.

By removing ambiguity, we allow individuals to not jump to conclusions about their membership within groups and calm their minds so they can use their mental capacity to focus on the task at hand.

 

The Investment Lifecycle of a Company

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The following excerpt is from Ross O’Brien’s book Cannabis Capital. Buy it now from Amazon | Barnes & Noble | iTunes

There are countless stories of entrepreneurship that can be traced back to a point in time when the founders wrote out their business plan on the back of a napkin. So many, in fact, that it has become a common trope for describing the ideation and planning phase of a business startup. It’s a great example of how a business is often little more than an idea; it’s so small you can write it on a napkin. And when you have the ability to take that initial napkin idea and develop it into an operating company, the business will grow and change.

At each phase of the cycle, there are specific dynamics that need to be managed and common strategic options and outcomes, along with sources of financing, that are specific to the needs of a company. It’s helpful to understand how companies develop, not only for the purposes of raising capital, but also for managing and building value over time. Here are the five key phases, along with the primary elements and types of financing that make the most sense:

Seed

  • Company elements: Founders are developing ideas about what the com­pany will be. There are limited resources with no product or service ready, and no revenues being generated. The company is run by the founders and isn’t capitalized to acquire staff or other resources. It’s without contracted suppliers, cus­tomers, or vendors.
  • Types of financing: Equity from founders’ friends, family and angels, and debt from credit cards (founders’ personal resources)

Development

  • Company elements: The founders are refining the product or services to deliver, along with the op­erating model. Any R&D and technology develop­ment is scoped out and underway. The opera­tional plan is defined, and resourcing requirements have been identified. Early adopter customers are identified and in discussions, but the company is still in a pre-revenue phase.
  • Types of financing: Equity from founders’ friends, family and angels, and equity from high-risk venture capital

Related: How to Raise Cannabis Venture Capital  

Go-to-market

  • Company elements: The company is generat­ing revenue, but it’s not yet profitable or just at break even.
  • Types of financing: Equity from founders’ friends, family and angels; debt from credit cards (founders’ personal resources); equity from high-risk venture capital; equity from private equity funds or family offices; bank debt

Expansion

  • Company elements: The company achieves profitability and meaning­ful customer adoption.
  • Types of financing: Equity from high-risk venture capital; equity from private equity funds or family offices; bank debt; strategic financing from corporate partners

Exit

  • Company elements: When a company has core value drivers such that a buyer will want to acquire it, exit opportunities are pursued, and early-stage risk is largely mitigated.
  • Types of financing: Equity from high-risk venture capital; equity from private equity funds or family offices; bank debt; strategic financing from corporate partners, access to the public markets

Two important terms that reflect where a company is in its lifecycle are “pre-revenue” and “post-revenue.” These terms are widely used by investors to quickly identify a company’s stage. When a company has demonstrated that it can produce revenue, it implies that there’s a developed market-ready product or service and all the work has been done to get to a point where an external customer is willing to pay money for the product or service.

If a company hasn’t yet reached that point, it’s considered a “pre-revenue company.” Many investors define their investment parameters by stating whether they will invest in pre-revenue companies, meaning whether they are willing to take on earlier stage risk.

A “post-revenue company” will require investment for a completely different set of activities, so using revenue as a benchmark allows investors to quickly characterize what their investment will likely go to fund, what the next set of outcomes will likely be, and in what anticipated time frame they will occur. Companies with revenue are broadly managing how to scale while pre-revenue companies are managing developing products and an organization in anticipation of scaling.

 

How to Drive Growth — With or Without VC Funding

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Is venture capital funding becoming obsolete? As The New York Times reports, some entrepreneurs are starting to reject offers of funding, suggesting that founders are trending away from the traditional VC model.

More than that, we’re seeing leaders in the startup space outwardly express the need to shift focus away from VC funding. Bryce Roberts, co-founder of O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, for example, suggests that startups reconsider VC funding or avoid it altogether, while MeUndies founder Jonathan Shokrian urges entrepreneurs to find alternate paths to success.

In my experience as a founder, CEO and investor, I’ve found that the path to success is the middle ground between depending on VC funding and rejecting it altogether. Venture capital is valuable to a fledgling company, but even well-funded startups fail without smart leaders to guide their growth.

Big checks from venture capital firms still offer plenty of appeal. VC funding provides social validation, which helps founders recruit better talent. More money can also extend the runway for companies to find a scalable product-market fit.

Related: 3 Warning Signs That Your Startup Isn’t Positioned to Secure Funding

But outside funding also means outside expectations. Those same checks that empower startups to scale often pressure them to do so at any cost. High-dollar investments in an immature company can tank operating discipline while founders chase top-line growth despite massive operating losses.

Before jumping at new funding opportunities, founders should step back and consider whether their companies genuinely need more funding or whether continued lean operations would be more effective for long-term growth.

Slow creep of VC dependence.

During my years on the entrepreneurial scene, I have learned to recognize the signs that a direct-to-consumer company is becoming overly dependent on VC funding. It happens in three phases of investment and growth, ending with untenable situations for both founders and investors.

The first phase — a new company acquires a bunch of cash, finds a good use for the money and starts to rapidly grow — is fun. We saw this eight years ago when companies like Birchbox and Warby Parker, among others, had tremendous early revenue growth and a singular focus on scaling channels at any cost. As channels grow, however, companies need even more money to sustain the momentum. Warby Parker, for example, needed to raise another $75 million last year despite its already impressive size.

Related: Explore Startup Investing Beyond Silicon Valley

As the market becomes saturated, we enter a second phase in which once-reliable channels become less capital-efficient. But companies have to keep feeding the machine, because their funding is based on the promise of continued revenue growth. That creates mounting pressure on businesses to scale at all costs. Add to that the difficulty of shifting from a focus on shareholder returns to one on profitability and long-term viability, and it’s clear why Birchbox needed to raise new money and wipe out existing investors last year.

In the final phase, companies are sitting on significant capital raises with no exit in sight. They’ve raised too much capital to slow down revenue growth in their current business model, but they can’t make the leap to acquisition because of inflated valuation expectations from the VCs funding them. Buyers look at the opportunity and pass because excessively pursuing funding has made the business unsustainable.

My company used to prioritize the same things as everyone else, but over the years, I have discovered that lean operating proficiency predicts success better than any other trait. Companies that cannot thrive on a limited budget rarely thrive on a larger one. Efficiency, not comfort, predicts growth. To make the most of your capital, follow these essential tips:

1. Partner up to reach new audiences.

To grow an early-stage business, you need customers — not only active users, but paying loyalists — in order to survive without relying on VC funds.

Audiences don’t fall in love with unknown brands overnight, however. Marketing partnerships can help two brands with common ground grow large audiences on small budgets. Casper, for example, had already become a major brand by 2016, but when it partnered with West Elm, Casper got its products into stores, where consumers could try them in real life.

This kind of partnership marketing, in which one company partners with another to provide mutual benefits and exposure, helped Caspar tap into a large audience of potential buyers. West Elm moved on to Leesa Sleep a year later, but Casper leveraged the limited exposure to boost growth without big spend. It was a partnership that was helped by VC funding, but it allowed the company to build a viable business for the long term.

Related: 10 High-Profile Brand Partnerships That Struck Gold

2. Resist the siren call of rapid scaling.

Companies relying on VC funding are often pressured to shift focus away from their niche and scale in a way that doesn’t make sense. To stay on course, think back to the problem the company originally set out to solve. MailChimp got off the ground when co-founder Ben Chestnut designed an email tool to streamline a tedious process at his old job. Unnecessary funding could have turned MailChimp into another failed marketing agency, but maintaining focus kept MailChimp at the top of its niche.

When you keep scaling as a peripheral goal, you can make building a loyal customer base the center of your strategy. When you build trust and engage customers consistently, you develop loyalists who boost the return on every marketing dollar –just a five percent increase in customer retention can boost profits by 25 percent to 95 percent.

At my company, we discovered that regular content creation provides a cost-effective way to develop affinity within an existing audience. We use news, knowledge and education pieces to build a relationship of trust before we ask for a purchase. Users also provide feedback through content channels, which helps us test new product ideas and take the pulse of our audience. This is only possible, however, if you keep a steady focus on your niche and resist outside pressure to scale too quickly.

Related: How to Acquire the First 20 Customers for Your Startup

3. Foster an efficiency-first culture.

To develop a sustainable business model that doesn’t rely on endless rounds of VC fundraising, make efficiency — and efficient growth — a priority. Hire people who share a vision for efficient growth while keeping a core operating team of leaders who encourage one another to keep the vision on track in the face of temptations to go off-course.

For efficient growth, identify and own repeatable processes instead of outsourcing important functions. Dating site Plenty of Fish could have joined the fray of the dating site boom and abandoned its core values anytime after its founding in 2003. However, by focusing on the fight against spam accounts, Plenty of Fish maintained a good reputation and sold for $575 million to Match Group in 2015.

Extra money always sounds nice — until it causes more problems than it solves. Focus on your core mission, build an audience and invest carefully in the development of the brand’s biggest fans. Investors will always want a piece, but founders who build their companies with limited help get to keep more of the rewards.