People around you most likely do not care about your role, your salary, the amount of money in your bank account, how many square metres your house is, in which neighbourhood you live, the cost of the suit you wear or of the car you drive.
What matters to most, instead, is presence, love, attention, affection, care. All things that are inexpensive and available to everyone. Their value is immense.
The way companies communicate and engage with their employees in this time of crisis is going to have long term effects on motivation.
It is understandable that managers and leaders are focused on business continuity (no business = no employees). Nonetheless, if that is the only thing they talk about, the rationale behind every action taken, the excuse to ask people to give more in a time when there’s little to give, that can turn out to be extremely counterproductive. Not many are happy to work for top and bottom line only.
Few examples of companies that have taken corageous actions to signal they care.
Whitbread, a British hotel operator, has decided to not pay out dividends this year and instead guarantee full pay to the employees that are forced not to work.
Workday, maker of the popular HR and finance software, will pay two weeks of bonus to most of their employees (executives and VPs excluded) to make sure they have additional support during this difficult period.
Walmart, the American retailer, has implemented a number of measures to make sure employees who cannot work, and even those who are not comfortable working, can safely take the decision to stay home.
Buzzfeed, the new website, is going to cut pays in a progressive way, starting from 5% for lower salaries up to 25% for certain executives.
Yum! Brands, owner of KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, had the CEO forgo their salary for the rest of the year, to support a bonus for 1,200 restaurant general managers and provide initial support for an employee medical relief fund.
And close to home, in Finland, also Mapon’s CEO decided to not be paid for three months so that the company can at least delay laying off personnel.
If you are a business, the fact you care and worry about cash, revenue and profit is a given. Now is a great opportunity to show what else you care about.
Being humble is a great way to go about tackling a new challenge.
Humble keeps you grounded (the word actually comes from latin humus, that means earth), and it frees you from the need of having all the answers. When you are humble, you have time to explore, to audit, to find out, and eventually to make up your mind with a new set of information you wouldn’t have otherwise had.
Two things about leadership I got reminded about in the past week.
First, if you want to start a conversation on a challenging problem, do not put your idea forward. Not in the beginning, not in the middle, not at the end. Sit down and listen instead, and see if some elements of your idea can support somebody else’s idea.
Second, if somebody comes to you with a question, a problem, something to share, listen to them. Saying that you are busy, that it’s not important, that you don’t care (right now) is equivalent to breaking the relationship. If you really cannot listen now, apologise and go back to it later. It will be worth it.
Leadership is tough job. Hope you are getting the support you need.
Fear means you care.
Fear means you will think twice.
Fear means long-term matters to you.
Fear means you are learning.
Fear means you are not alone.
Fear is good, and when you accept it in your life, name it, verbalize it, it is a lot less scary than you think.
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