#MidWeekMessage — 08 April 2020
Here’s the vid version. Hope you enjoy it.
This written one is put together afterward incorporating the feedback and responses I get over the day so you may see a few differences. If you’d like to chat about any aspect of this article then self schedule a Virtual Coffee with me.
By way of a recap, these #MidWeekMessage briefings are for the CEOs, Founders, and Leaders involved with Canopy programs but they are also opened up for anyone who finds them relevant to watch and feedback. We hope that you find them useful during this time of crisis and that they provide you with a basis against which to reflect and prioritise. The trial is four editions after which we’ll continue if they are proving helpful.
The topics for today are:
- Cash Flow -> As the priority 1 area for focus for any CEO / Founder during this time of crisis I strongly encourage you to make it a daily task to review the 13-week cash flow forecast and to take proactive actions on this to keep the business stable. If you’d like a template or something to compare with let me know. For scheduling, I’d build this into the first part of your day and ensure it’s got your best energy and drive. (Happy to do this with you if it’s not an area of comfort for you.)
- Empathy -> A core lesson from remote only companies is to do things regularly that promote empathy between team members. This includes ones that are not performing the same function. The reflection is that it’s as important for say Finance to know about Development as it is for two developers to know what each other are working on. An hour or two each week to job shadow/screen share and mutually exchange insights can really help in creating empathy and rapport. On top of this remote only companies typically have a regular all hands get together — sometimes quarterly, where the remote teams come together for a few days to learn, build strategy and of course play together. It may be a while till we see that opportunity again but in the interim, it's good to see companies like those on last night's demo night panel talking about taking a virtual lunch together and even playing games together as a team. It was working for them and I thought it was inspired as a suggestion.
- Resilience ->In this current situation it is clear that we each may well be impacted by the covid19 virus either directly (when we get sick) or indirectly (when someone near to us gets sick and we need to help). So it is more important than ever to build in some resilience to the team. In the boards where I am involved, I’ve tried to encourage things like a weekly knowledge share across the team which is recorded and added to a central store/platform like Confluence. Additionally to encourage weekly status updates against objectives and work in progress along with a video capture of ‘ramblings’ around ideas/thoughts / future plans/things we are currently thinking about. The goal is to make it possible each week to then handover to someone else instantly and give them a fair shot at picking things up. Having an agreed deputy to each senior role is also a good idea. If your team is working still on-premises or is not able to be fully remote it’s also important to look at the rotas and special conditions that enable everyone to work safely & also prevent all people in similar roles to be exposed simultaneously to the potential of infection. The hospitals do this well, and it’s a good benchmark to look to for inspiration.
Over the last couple of days, we’ve hosted some interesting online events which I think throw a good perspective on these points. Yesterday the panel discussion at DemoNightLX38 was from three business leaders who reflected on how #covid19 had impacted them and their businesses and what they were doing about it. Huge thanks to Claudio, Soraya and Kevin for those insights and sharing their personal stories. Super valuable and relevant.
Also on Monday the latest edition of the Digital Phoenix series had Damian running us through strategic options and observed pivots that companies had made to adapt to the situation. It has the very UK feel to it, but there is relevance across many geographies. Take a look and let me know what you think. Damian is very good in this space too and it’s worth looking him up if you have a challenge.
Across all of these conversations was a common thread of understanding. It is not the smartest or the strongest or the fastest that survive things like #covid19 but the most adaptable to change that will win out. I think that this is a topic I will bring out more in next weeks #MidWeekMessage
Shout out with your feedback or Whatsapp me if you want to chat and in the interim, I wish you good health. Stay safe.
#tribe
Stew
