When life gives you crises, make opportunity
A Sense of Urgency by John P. Kotter (Chapter 6)
This week we learn a third tactic for instilling a sense of true urgency for our change effort: finding opportunity in crises. The crises can come from within the organization or as a result of what you learn about external impacts as you bring the outside in.
I have a natural orientation towards continuous improvement. Most leaders say they are always looking to get better but few put their actions behind their words. When missteps occur, ineffective leaders instantly try to downplay or reduce visibility into the problem in an effort to do damage control. This is misguided and a mistake.
(excerpt from A Sense of Urgency)
Following the basic principle to always think of crises as potential opportunities not only helps us to increase urgency around a needed change effort but can provide the initial indication that a change is needed.
To fully illustrate this, I wanted to make this week’s blog post more of a case study than just an article. This is based on a true story but the names of people and companies are fictious.
The Background
The Company
Orient is a platform company made up of the following previously-small businesses:
- CLKC, LLC
- Hard Solutions, Inc
- Next Level Technology, LLC
- North Star Solutions
Orient is in the process of integrating all of these companies which involves consolidating various functional areas, like HR. Orient has emphasized that it will continue to put people first - a value that many of the employees from the legacy companies are skeptical of.
The Situation
On Friday, June 7, Bob receives a call from his pregnant wife. She is extremely upset because she is being turned away at her 38-week check up appointment and was informed that their insurance coverage was no longer active.
Bob calls the health insurance company who informs him that his insurance lapsed at the start of the month and encouraged him to speak with his employer’s benefits representative. Bob contacts his manager - let’s call her Mary - to help him resolve this issue.
After many calls, Mary learns that not only has Bob’s coverage become inactive, the entire division lost healthcare coverage at the start of June. The coverage had not been paid because the HR reps from the legacy North Star Solutions (the company that Mary and Bob had worked) thought that the responsibility had been transferred to the HR reps at CLKC (which were leading the HR integration). The HR reps at CLKC did not have the same understanding of their role. The right people were now aware of the crisis and would resolve it, but it would take a week before the health care coverage would be active again. For simplicity, the “right people” are
- Division Manager - let’s call her Paula
- HR rep who would pay the bill and re-establish health care coverage for the division
Discussion
Below, I propose two questions. I share my thoughts in a drop down to give you a chance to think about what you would do before reading. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments or you can email me directly.
Consider Bob’s specific predicament. This is a professional AND personal crisis for him. What opportunity does this present to Orient? Assume you are Paula. What can you do to take advantage of this opportunity?
What would Dawn do? (toggle to read)
I see this as an opportunity to deepen trust with Bob and Mary.
First, I would reach out to Bob and offer to cover the cost of his visit so that his wife could be seen that same day or as soon after. I would also assure him that if his wife should go into labor or has any medical needs before the coverage is renewed that Orient will take 100% financial responsibility for their bills. Although I can’t immediately correct the situation, my hope would be that I could relieve some financial worry from Bob and also communicate that I care about him and am putting him first.
Then, I would reach out to Mary and thank her for raising the issue to my attention. I would let her know what I had promised Bob and encourage her to let me know if she had other ideas for ways that we could support them through this time. My intent is to reinforce her actions as being important to the company and to me personally. I want her to feel valued and supported as well.
This will likely have a broader positive impact as well. There’s no way that Bob doesn’t tell others about what’s happened. However, he will also be able to discuss how the company supported him and that will help to build trust and reinforce the “people first” value.
So, you are now aware that your entire division of 245 people is without healthcare coverage and will be for another week. You’re not naive and realize that Bob will probably tell others about the situation but that may result in 5-10 additional people knowing. You need to decide whether to proactively tell everyone in your division or deal with people on a case by case basis and therefore only address those who learn of the situation. Where is the opportunity? What would you do?
What would Dawn do? (toggle to read)
This is definitely a situation where I’ve seen leaders go into damage control mode but that is a mistake. I would proactively reach out to the whole division and let them know what we had learned. I would be honest about what had led to coverage having lapsed and acknowledge that it is a horrible situation and could make many of them feel scared. I would let them know that Orient is prepared to cover any medical needs that arise over the next week. I would work with HR to determine how we might provide the employees with guarantee of that so they can show to a hospital or doctor if the need arises. I would make sure they knew what was being done to immediately rectify the situation and commit to making a plan to ensure nothing like this happened again. I would share my personal information and make myself available to them through the weekend in case any issues or concerns needed to be addressed. Once I was able to create such a plan, I would follow up to communicate it back out to this team.
The opportunity is in being transparent, accepting responsibility and instilling as much confidence as you can that the situation is being handled. The benefit to doing this far outweighs the damage control approach. It probably seems so obvious as you are reading this that this is an opportunity to deepen trust with this team. As with most leadership principles, although it is obvious does not mean it is often followed.
What actually happened
Unfortunately, you can probably predict what actually happened but I’ll tell you anyway. The division manager never directly reached out to the employee nor did she inform the other employees in the division. Of course most of them found out anyway. Some reached out to her to express their disappointment in the way that things had been handled. Others just took a mental note that they should leave the company when a better opportunity arose. Some actively started to look for a job where their benefits would be stable.
The mistake was never directly rectified. For many months following this incident, there continued to be confusion over whose responsibility it was to conduct important business activities. Fortunately, the platform company was purchased by a larger company before too many more crises occurred but this was not the only one.
Final Thoughts
Recently, I was listening to a podcast episode where someone referred to leadership as a system. The more I think about it, the more I believe that is the most accurate way to think about it. As we study these techniques for overcoming the dangers of leading successful change efforts and learn from those who have done so, it’s obvious that no single leadership principle or tactic operates discretely. In the short case study above, we focused on finding the opportunity in a crisis but we couldn’t do so without incorporating the importance of building trust.
Therefore, an effective leader must understand how to use the components of the system uniquely and appropriately for each situation. Well, no wonder leadership is so complex!
We will continue to learn so that we might be the most effective leaders we can. Thank you for reading!