Ways to Remain Innovative During a Crisis
During a time of crisis, innovate. Don’t waste time on the uncontrollable. Focus on ways that you and your team can maximize the opportunity. There are always tasks that can be done to move the team forward, even when it seems that the world has halted.
Identify processes that have been neglected. One of the services that my company, ARG Coaching & Consulting Group, offers is process improvement. I often find that teams see or even feel gaps in their procedures but do very little about them until they either impact the customer experience or someone realizes the financial effect the gaps are having on the bottom line.
Use this time to pull your leadership team together to discuss some of the broken processes. Create an action plan to roll out the changes and provide procedural updates for the rest of the team. You want to ensure that you also have an accountability plan in place to ensure that the team does not revert back to the status quo after implementation.
If you don’t have a team, then enlist friends, family, or call me to help you walk through a service blueprint or process mapping.
Don’t squander opportunities. No doubt, it is easy to get trapped in the negative rants on social media or bogged down by the doom and gloom of the news. Just like all crises, this will pass and you want to be ready when clients need your services, and who’s to say that time isn’t now. If you are focused on the negative, you might miss opportunities that are staring you in the face.
I was talking with a CEO a few months ago. She was telling me that her company had to find ways to make it through the last economic downfall. When the numbers were looking bleak, she began getting phone calls for services that were not normally in her company’s scope. She saw this as a chance to reengage old clients, pick up new clients, and maximize the opportunity. She quickly gathered her team and filled the need for the turning marketplace.
In a time that could have been detrimental to her company, she shifted her model to address the demands of the consumer. What are the demands of your industry? Can you shift your model to meet them?
Stay motivated and future-focused. Encourage the team to read a chapter each day from a leadership book. Then talk about the key takeaways and principles you can apply during the morning huddle. Catch up on industry data. Recharge and find ways to cultivate something new. Try not to allow morale to drop. As illustrated above, it is generally during tough times that people realize that they can tap into a new idea that will generate revenue.
Keep the team engaged by initiating a pitch contest on how to generate revenue or cost savings for the organization. This will keep the team motivated and honestly, it might produce some great ideas that could drive more revenue into the company.
I was listening to a podcast last week by Dr. Nadia Brown, of The Doyenne Agency. She reminded us not to wait for things to be perfect. Perfection will cost you time and money.
So this may not be the perfect time for a crisis, is there ever?? However, you can use this time to focus on those ideas that you wanted to bring to life but didn’t have the time due to higher demands. When business levels are impacted due to crises stay productive, stay motivated, and most importantly innovate.
Remember to conquer change and cultivate results. It is a choice.
Angela Garmon is the founder and business strategist at ARG Coaching & Consulting Group. She uses her 20 years of change management experience to help her clients build organizational performance and increase profits by focusing on three key areas: enhancing leadership effectiveness, building team cohesion and improving processes.
