I follow Dan Rockwell’s blog – Leadership Freak as part of my reading list and am always looking forward to his take on leadership related topics. He brings a simple yet profound but practical approach to solving some of the most difficult issues on leading well.
In his post 3 WAYS TO NAVIGATE TOUGH TIMES, he shares the following as the key steps that leaders need to take in order to successfully navigate tough times.
#1: Prepare before tough times arrive.
#2: Nurture clear-headed thinking.
#3: Reconnect with purpose and build the airplane in the air.
– Dan Rockwell, The Leadership Freak
I like each one of these advices. Specifically the first one. He assumes that tough times will come, earlier or later. It is not a matter of if but a matter of when. So, it is always better to be prepared for tough times by having built a foundation of strong relationships.
Apart from the advice that Dan shares on his post, I would think that there is one more thing that we can do to be prepared for the tough times, whenever they come.
Planning for Tough Times
While we are creatures of habit, we are also the most adapting creatures when needed. So, I think it is a good idea to build a checklist for tough times in advance so that we are able to remember what we need to do in tough times.
We can’t allow ourselves to only react to the situation. We need to be in control of how we respond to the situation. And having a checklist or a playbook to refer to when tough times hit us is a good way to slow down and think clearly.
My checklist would look something like below:
- Take a deep breath. Don’t panic.
- List down people who can help us gain a new perspective on the current situation.
- Reach out to them and seek help.
- List down people who have gone faced similar situation and have done well. Ask for their support.
- Be transparent with your team. Ask for their suggestions.
- Every challenge also brings with it a set of opportunities. What is the opportunity that we can create from this tough time?
- We always operate under a set of assumptions. Tough times are a good reason to look and question our assumptions. List down our assumptions. Check if any of our assumptions have become invalid? If yes, what has changed? Why? How does that impact us?
- There are always more options than we think there are. Keep looking.
- Is there anything that we can learn from other industries, functions that could help us in the current situation?
- Remember – This too shall pass.
In Conclusion:
The assumption that tough times will come and its not a matter of if, but when is a good assumption to hold. This allows us to prepare and be ready for the tough times.
It also allows us the opportunity to question our assumptions and clarifies our thinking. Being prepared for tough times and having a checklist to go through helps us stay clear headed and respond to the situation rather than react to the situation.
If you were to create a checklist to refer during tough times, what would that checklist look like?
