What do you do next when everything is uncertain?
“Okay, Houston, we’ve had a problem here.” The famous words of NASA Astronaut Jack Swigert could not be more appropriate right now.
I’ve been talking to clients all week, and it’s been interesting to hear how they are coping with COVID-19 as well as their biggest concerns. Most people are concerned for their families and employees and about future business conditions, customers, and suppliers. People are deeply unsure of what’s going to happen next. Folks are still coming to work, orders are coming in and being shipped, work is getting done. Nothing is abnormal, but leaders know that they need to prepare for all of that to change quickly. The uncertainty of the moment is palpable.
The conversations have all turned to discussion about how to deal with uncertainty… What can we do about the questions? Will I have enough staff? Can I get raw materials? Will I lose key people? What will customer demand look like? Can I get equipment serviced? In reality, these are questions that we are always asking, but never with the urgency that we are experiencing now. There is so much we do not know, so what do we do next?
My advice now (and likely in the future) is to take a deep breath and double down on the basics. For leaders, engage your organization in problem solving as the problems emerge. Create standard work to facilitate cross-training in key areas. Build to customer demand to conserve resources (people and materials). Decrease the order-to-delivery cycle to improve cash flow. And more than anything, refocus on what you can do, which is continuously improve your most important processes. For true lean thinkers, these are just the basics.
The truth is we’re not in control of external forces (we never have been), but we are always in control of is how we deal with these forces. In our organizations, we have an opportunity now to choose to build better and stronger teams. We can choose to focus on building trust, taking care of our community, and finding ways to serve both our stakeholders and customers better.
If we do this, we come out stronger every time.
