Immediate priorities for CEOs and their leadership teams facing the COVID-19 crisis

Over the last two weeks, I’ve spoken with over a dozen CEOs and their leadership teams discussing the recent developments regarding the COVID-19 pandemic and actions by federal, state, and local governments. While every business will be hit hard by both the restrictions in travel, the shut down of non-essential businesses, and the general economic impact, there are steps you can take to lessen the impact and position yourself for a faster recovery.

The situation continues to change and develop and different parts of the US and the world are facing different sets of challenges. While China seems to be abating, Italy, Spain, and France are particularly hard hit and the rest of Europe is quickly being affected. In the US, NYC appears to be the hot spot and will be facing severe increases in cases over the coming weeks. If you or your team members are in a hot zone, please plan quickly and accordingly. That said, every community will be impacted in the coming weeks and months and every business needs to have a plan.

Below are the general items I’m working with all of my CEO and leadership team clients on to make sure they have a plan in place now or will have in place quickly. If you haven’t considered and put in place a response to these items, I highly recommend you add them to your next executive meeting agenda.

1) Active priorities

Given the rapidly changing situations in most communities, teams are moving from a quarterly to a weekly planning cycle. The beginning of each week (or the end of the previous week), set 2-3 key business priorities for the next seven days. Each executive should also set 2-3 individual/departmental priorities as well.

These should be the top areas of focus to stabilize the business, identify immediate risks and mitigation strategies, caring for your people, and what to communicate to all customers and business stakeholders. As things play out the next few weeks, add strategic objectives based on your analysis of the next 6-12 months and what actions your business needs to take to be well-positioned on the other side of the pandemic.

2) Weekly planning meetings

Your weekly meeting should be your core rhythm at this point and time. Bring your leadership team together to assess and reflect on the current situation and set/update your active priorities for the coming week. Focus on triaging immediate issues and get clear what actions need to take place over the next one to two weeks.

This meeting should take 90-120 mins and focus on the following core agenda items. Don’t get bogged down in details, focus on clarifying and assigning tasks to executives and getting clear action plans.

Weekly Meeting Agenda

• Top 2-3 updates from each executive

• Review/revise top 2-3 priorities for the company

• Issue processing (define, assign, discuss, decide, and then plan)

• Update working assumption and implications

• Review action plans and individual/departmental priorities

I recommend that a company communication go out after each meeting letting all stakeholders know of all important decisions and updates. I also recommend that you communicate to your clients and other partners as needed to keep them updated on what business services will be available over what periods of time. Regular communication is key, even if it’s repetitive, in times of uncertainty.

3) Issue list

There will be a lot of issues coming at you and your team over the coming weeks. Focus on tracking, prioritizing, and process them quickly. Use a triage process to sort them in order of importance and urgency. Delegate/assign things quickly wherever possible, then tackle them in order of importance and impact on the business.

For items that need to be discussed by the leadership team, focus on getting clear on the issues before trying to solve them. Once well-defined, focus on clarifying who will be responsible for the issue then have that person lead the discussion. Drive to a clear set of commitments and a plan of action with deadlines.

4) Working assumptions

Given the uncertain nature of the coming months, teams need a set of working assumptions around what may happen with the economy, the market, your business, and communities in general. Discuss these as a team and make a decision on what parameters you will assume for your decision making.

These should include what travel and community restrictions will be in place for what period of time, what will happen with capital markets, likely competitive responses, etc. For many of these, you will need to develop a 20/50/80% probability and time estimates to work against. Update these as you get new information and discuss the changes in your priorities, decisions, and plan that result.

5) Scenario planning

I’m recommending that all teams create a revised 2020 forecast that includes three scenarios against your current plan. These three plans should include a 10%, 25%, and 50% drop in revenue and the resultant drops in COGS and operating expenses, including staff.

Have your finance lead develop a revenue and expense model for each of these scenarios and send out to the team. Each team/department lead should then create a plan for their functional area as to what action they need to take to get to these new targets in each case and which decisions they will need to make under each scenario.

For all three scenarios, identify a last responsible moment for implementing each plan. This is the timeframe that you must make a decision by for keeping the company in reasonable financial health. For some business, this may happen very quickly; others may have some time to see how things play out before needed to take action.

6) Daily huddles

Your key teams, including your leadership team, should all be doing daily huddles at this point. If you’re not, start ASAP. The daily huddle agenda is simple and each member answers three questions with two to three items: 1) what got done yesterday, 2) what are you focused on today, 3) where are you stuck. These meetings should be less than 15 minutes in total.

For the next several weeks, I would open your huddles with any important news or updates to your assumption list as well. And be sure to check in with your team on their personal/family situation and mental/physical health issues.

7) Communication system

At this point, your team and your company should have standardized its communication platforms and protocols. I recommend video as much as possible and using a chat tool (such as Slack) over email for immediate communications.

I also recommend daily communication (email or slack or even video) from the CEO with updates and news to the entire company. Reinforce messages and priorities and remind people where they can find help and resources. Again, don’t worry about repetition. Sending out updates consistent, even if there is little/no new news will help reduce uncertainty and fear.

8) Continuity planning

It’s clear that many people will be affected by COVID-19. I have had one CEO client and several members of leadership teams I work with hospitalized at this point. Do not underestimate the impact and severity of this situation and be prepared.

For each member of your leadership team, including the CEO, have a least two people identified who can step into the role for at least two weeks should someone become incapacitated. Establish how the role will be handed over and communicated and share the plans with all of your key leaders and stakeholders.

If you have any questions or need help with any of the above items, please reach out ASAP. I am offering free coaching calls to CEOs and leadership team members to help develop and we’ll set up a time to discuss your action plan.

I am also running regular webinars on key topics for companies during the COVID-19 crisis including: Running Effective Virtual Meetings, Advanced Zoom Facilitation Techniques, and Running Virtual Daily Huddles. You can register and access the archive here: http://www.eckfeldt.com/webinar.