Call to Service: How Business Leaders Tackle Fear & Uncertainty Could be the Greatest Contribution to Resolving this Global Economic Crisis

By Blair LaCorte, President of AEye

In my 30 years in business, I’ve witnessed and have had to lead teams across five industries through some tragic and terrifying times in our country — times like the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Afghan and Iraq conflicts, and the 2008 global financial crisis. But myself and other business leaders now face the challenge of our careers.

The crisis caused by COVID-19 is uniquely destabilizing Americans’ financial foundation: the ability to take care of our families and ourselves. At no other time since the Great Depression have business leaders needed to play such a significant role in service of our collective workforce. While our brave first responders risk their lives to fight this virus on the front lines, we must triage our businesses, infusing financial security measures that will be critical to restart our nation’s economy.

While the Coronavirus pandemic is unprecedented in its sweeping personal health impact and the rapidly accelerating economic implications caused by disease mitigation efforts, the basic historical patterns are still instructive: crisis shatters our feeling of normalcy, putting a black cloud over our day-to-day lives. With COVID-19, schools and businesses have shuttered, borders have closed, and “social distancing” has become the new norm, as people across the globe attempt to slow the virus’ spread. Nothing is as it was a mere month ago.

In this climate, it’s natural for fear to take hold, and for people to do what they can (i.e. stock up on toilet paper) to feel a sense of control over what seems like a helpless situation. People feel vulnerable personally and economically. Their lives and livelihood have been disrupted, their health is at risk, and they crave leadership that will help them get their footing.

In aviation, there is a term called GUMPS, and it serves as a mental checklist for fixed-wing aircraft pilots to ensure nothing critical has been forgotten before landing. It is extremely effective in a crisis, when many other factors are at play and the pilot must focus.

In business, I have often used a similar methodology in an acronym called SAFE. I developed this as a guide for what to do when you are trying to “land” a company in a safe space, and avoid crashing. SAFE stands for Stabilize, Analyze, Focus and Execute, and it serves to acknowledge people’s need for a constructive process to manage through times of high ambiguity and risk. The advice on its face may seem simple but, in reality, simple is often the most powerful guide in a crisis.

As Brené Brown, a respected author and academic, has written, “Vulnerability is basically uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure.” It’s our job as business leaders to help our employees feel less vulnerable, provide them context and solid footing, and empower them to help lead us out of crisis. By taking these steps, we can navigate our companies through the short-term challenges, while plotting a course to ensure solvency and health for the long-term.

Here is how the SAFE model breaks down:

Stabilize

In a crisis, the first item of business is to stabilize. This means taking an inventory of the “as is” situation: What needs to be done now? For example, what are the “burning platforms”, or business imperatives, that need to be addressed immediately? In the case of California’s “shelter in place” order, our business had 12 hours to enable a distributed operation and implement a daily executive team meeting to monitor the situation. These strategy neutral actions are designed to normalize everyone to the “as is”, and to ensure the teams know what to prioritize as a company.

Analyze

The second action needs to be done in parallel. This involves analyzing the situation and collecting data in order to fully understand its severity, and to ensure you are prepared to prioritize for what might happen next. This might mean doing an audit of your supply chain so that you know where your company’s risks are as the virus spreads across borders, as well as looking at which financial levers you can pull and when you can pull them if the crisis is prolonged. At our company, we needed to know if our customers delayed purchases, what things we could delay and when. Getting to the truth fast is the biggest advantage in a crisis.

Focus

As a leader, you need to focus on what’s a priority. Focus is often an overused word. In crisis, it means ignoring things that in normal times matter. It’s about saying no to people. Use the facts you collected in your analysis to focus the team. You will have goals, but your priority must be the immediate things that enable your company and workforce to get its footing.

Think of a competitive high school basketball game, where your team is down by 20 points in the first few minutes. It’s easy to get demoralized thinking about how many challenges you must face to win the game. The better option is to call a timeout, stabilize the team, assess what is happening on the court, prioritize on a revised plan and then focus on the next play, and the next, and the next. That short-term focus with quick feedback loops is what’s required in a crisis. If you fail, fail fast and small. If you succeed, apply more resources quickly and with critical mass. Build momentum and adapt as you move forward.

Execution

It’s important to execute quickly and effectively. This will take a team effort, and you will need to optimize the capability of people to help you. Make a list ​of your priorities, hold people accountable, and get real-time feedback that could adjust your priorities. Your effectiveness in this crisis will be less about you coming up with the right idea, and more about how well you mobilized your workforce by giving them space to lead. My father often said, “You don’t have to be right; you just need to get it right. “In other words, rely on the team closer to the ground to come up with solutions and make decisions.

Finally, make sure you communicate well. Develop a very high-level narrative, align the entire executive team to be able to verbalize it, and open up lines of communication to share this deeper message to employees. It’s never been more important to be transparent, explaining to your workforce what you know and don’t know in context of the bigger crisis, and how you are addressing the situation as a company.

As a leader, you above all else need to translate uncertainty into hopefulness. That means celebrating the little wins, highlighting people’s achievements, establishing more one-on-one communications, showing empathy and giving energy. This is a time when faith, emotional commitment and endurance matter. As Saint Francis of Assi said, in times of crisis, “Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.”

Blair LaCorte is the president of AEye. A highly accomplished strategist and leader, he has held CEO and executive leadership positions across the aviation, defense, industrial, technology, internet and consulting industries. Blair is also an investor and astronaut in training with Virgin Galactic, and a NASA “Innovator of the Year.”