Leaders will undoubtedly come across more than one crisis during their career. But what is the best way to deal with these crises? Rob Gamlin, Founder and Co-CEO of VoCoVo, starts off this month’s discussion below with his tips on how leaders should deal with a crisis.
You could argue that leaders earn their pay cheques most when a crisis occurs. It’s in those moments that leaders must show calmness and clarity of thought to navigate the business and its colleagues through whatever event is occurring.
In retail, these leadership qualities are required more often than you might think. The UK continues to grapple with a surge in retail crime, as the latest Retail Crime Survey reveals record levels of violence and abuse in UK shops, with 1,300 daily incidents of racial abuse, physical assaults or threats involving weapons. Shoplifting has also doubled from 8 million to 16.7 million incidents in 2023, leading to the largest-ever loss for retailers at £1.8 billion. For retailers, single incidents can quickly escalate into crisis.
The fight against crime has become an urgent priority for every retailer. A poll by Independent Retail News found that 41% of staff suffer from insomnia and 8% have been diagnosed with PTSD due to customer abuse and burglaries.
However, as with any business crisis, the best leaders will carefully consider the right strategic approach before acting. The first step must always be to assess the situation thoroughly – gathering detailed facts, understanding the scope of the incident and identifying who has been impacted. In retail, this can quite often involve shop floor colleagues who’ve had their safety put at risk.
Leaders must then rely on pre-established crisis management plans to inform their actions. This ensures decisions are not made hastily but driven by a strategy designed to mitigate harm.
Once the immediate crisis is managed, the focus should quickly shift to preventing recurrence. In retail, integrating smart technology is key to strengthening security measures. Recent research by VoCoVo found that 43% of UK small store retailers ranked ‘to alert to security issues’ as the primary reason for colleague communication in retail locations. Yet, 49% of small-store retail workers rely on personal mobile devices for in-store communications, leaving significant security gaps.
By connecting colleagues in a seamless way in stores, teams can navigate challenging situations more effectively, knowing support is just a discreet communication away. Moreover, effective in-store communication technology allows colleagues to quickly communicate with team members to de-escalate difficult situations.
Crisis management is an important tool for leaders to have in their armoury, but perhaps the most important aspect comes when the crisis ends. When I think about the best leadership I’ve seen throughout my career, of which there are plenty of examples, they do not allow for complacency and understand that action is critical following incidents to minimise the risk of them happening again.
Ronelle Bester, Founder and Account Director, Red Ribbon Communications:
After the recent CrowdStrike incident, in which a sensor configuration update caused a global IT outage on Windows systems, the importance of a strong, supportive corporate culture has never been clearer.
An update to CrowdStrike’s Falcon Sensor software, a sophisticated Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) system designed to prevent cyberattacks, inadvertently caused catastrophic disruptions across multiple industries globally. In South Africa, it impacted companies such as Capitec and Absa. This failure was not just a technical glitch – it highlighted deeper cultural issues within the company.
This incident is a big lesson for businesses worldwide: the culture within a company is not just an important issue, but a key part that helps its operations, new ideas and overall success.
A diverse and inclusive culture brings together individuals with varied perspectives and experiences. This diversity fuels creativity and innovation, allowing companies to solve problems in novel ways and develop groundbreaking products. When employees feel valued and included, they are more likely to contribute their best ideas and efforts.
A fair and inclusive culture fosters a sense of belonging among employees. When people feel respected and valued for who they are, they are more engaged and committed to their work. This reduces turnover and ensures that the company keeps its top talent, which is crucial for long-term success.
A supportive culture encourages employees to collaborate and trust one another. This is essential in times of crisis, like the CrowdStrike incident, where quick, coordinated responses are needed. Companies with strong cultures are better equipped to handle setbacks and recover swiftly.
The CrowdStrike failure underscores the dangers of prioritising growth and shareholder value over the health of the company culture.
Businesses should take note of these key points:
Prioritise quality and accountability: Rapid growth should not come at the expense of quality. Companies need robust quality assurance processes and should hold themselves accountable for the products they release. This includes investing in skilled personnel and allowing them the time and resources to ensure the reliability of their work.
Invest in employee wellbeing: Employee satisfaction and wellbeing should be at the forefront of corporate priorities. This means creating a work environment that supports work/life balance, recognises employee contributions and addresses their concerns. A content workforce is a productive and innovative one.
Embrace transparency and communication: Open communication channels are vital. Employees should feel comfortable voicing their ideas and concerns. Transparent decision-making processes build trust and foster a collaborative environment where everyone feels they have a stake in the company’s success.
Adopt a long-term perspective: Companies should balance short-term gains with long-term sustainability. This involves making decisions that may not yield immediate financial returns but contribute to the company’s longevity and reputation.
Moving forward: Building a culture of excellence
For South African businesses and others around the world, the CrowdStrike incident is a powerful reminder that culture is not just a buzzword, but a critical component of business success. A diverse, equitable and inclusive culture is the foundation upon which companies can build innovative, resilient and successful companies.
David Ross, International VUCA Strategist, Founder of Phoenix Strategic Management and Author:
There are a lot of crises consuming organisations today. There are regional issues like extreme weather events affecting supply chains or global issues like economic uncertainty or the pandemic. But also commonly, there are self-induced crises.
Whatever the cause, the immediate organisational response is often the same: Confusion. Chaos. Conflict. Then (imposed) Control, anticipating that it will result in Certainty.
In such high-pressured situations, it is understandable that leaders employ the skills and behaviours that have anchored them, previously, to success. But what if those skills and mindsets don’t re-establish certainty; in fact, what if during a crisis they make things worse?
Success not sinking
What is the best way for leaders to deal with a crisis? Quite probably, do the opposite of what many leaders do.
Don’t retreat to acting out the centuries-old ‘hero’ story of leadership and control. When confronted by a crisis, it is very natural to respond with a mindset that ‘I – and I, alone – will lead us out of this’.
However, leaders simply don’t have enough time, experience or expertise to deal with all components of crises. And because your stakeholders are so savvy, you impose solutions and outcomes on them at your peril.
From a place of courage, leaders can only successfully deal with crises by admitting to themselves that they need to share. Share making sense of the problems faced. Share decision-making. Share control.
The best way to deal with a crisis requires leaders and organisations operating, in parallel, at two speeds – a sprint and a marathon. It requires adaptation.
- There is a sprint necessary to defuse any ‘explosive’ conflict occurring with staff, customers or other stakeholders. Underpinned by emotional intelligence, this requires reaching out to the aggrieved to proactively listen and then sincerely respond to their issues. Collaboration and open communication, not imposition and secrecy.
- There is the disciplined marathon necessary to strategically confront the crisis and rebuild trust, where applicable, or the organisation. Underpinned by seeking a truly holistic understanding, there are several key considerations including:
- Adapting leadership. The senior voice must be emotionally intelligent and able to regulate their behaviour in the coming stressful months.
- Adapting mindsets and assumptions. Narrow mindsets in the ‘war cabinet’ constrain success. Seek out and collaborate with influential stakeholders with similar goals but different perspectives.
- Adapting communication. Get the balance right. Proactive and transparent rather than overwhelming.
- Adapting tactics and even strategy. Don’t remain rigid. If your tactics aren’t working, shift direction. Find opportunities in the crisis.
- Adapting structure. To enhance agility, decentralise problem solving. Back your teams.
- Adapting future efforts. Become more anticipatory through learning transformative foresight. Be proactive, less reactive, in response to future crises.
Fred Voccola, CEO, Kaseya:
Communicate. Communicate. Communicate.
The most important aspect in leading an organisation through a crisis is communication. People – customers and employees – are organisations’ most significant assets. Human beings are uncomfortable with change because it scares them. They like predictability and stability and change presents a threat to that.
However, as the ancient Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, so brilliantly put it a few thousand years ago, the only constant in life is change. I believe he was telling humanity that as much as we don’t like change, we best get used to it, as it is not going anywhere.
Organisational change management recognises this universal discomfort with change and teaches us the importance of presenting it in the light of gradual or non-threatening change, ensuring that the individuals, be them employees or customers, experience the disruption in a digestible way that they can relate to. This approach minimises fear, doubt and uncertainty associated with the change at hand.
There have been hundreds of examples of very successful organisations undertaking significant restructuring and/or rebranding initiatives that impacted their employees and/or customers tremendously, yet they were done successfully. That’s because the change that was taking place was well thought out, planned, strategised on and rolled out according to a well-defined plan.
By its very nature, a crisis is a situation that in its wake forces immediate and tremendous change to a wide range of impacted parties for a business and may include employees, customers, partners, regulators and other stakeholders. The organisation experiencing the crisis did not have weeks or months to properly prepare for the given change and build the communication strategy, messaging and processes to ensure that the impacted parties grow in the change, and ‘feel good’ about it. Yet, they must still respond and in a timely manner.
To prevent the fear, doubt and uncertainty that results from a lack of information, which often leads parties to take a ‘worst case’ scenario, leaders must overcommunicate. And they must do so at every opportunity possible, in every communication channel and vehicle possible. Leaders should assemble their rapid response team to address the crisis at hand and not wait to begin communications. Even if the first communications are not overly detailed and meaningful, and they improve over time as the messaging and actions of the organisation develop relative to the crisis, communication is what allows people to stop and listen, to not react emotionally to the crisis and wait to understand all the facts.
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