adidas

Ignacio Aranguez Montero

Business strategy is dead. Is that a fact? It is no question that the traditional strategic-planning model is no longer useful as it was while uncertainty is the new normal for most of our businesses. That approach worked well when markets were more stable and the primary factors influencing future growth and profitability were easier to forecast. However, in crafting strategy, companies often struggle to cope with volatility.

The current business and social environment are not entirely under an employee’s or manager’s control. Nowadays, we are seeing some relevant companies from different industries announcing layoffs and/or cost reductions, while apparently, it is still early symptoms of a virus that will be spread across almost every single industry over the coming months. However, is on leaders to make a difference even when making these hard decisions. Every business decision must be taken according to some common values such as respect, loyalty, and/or gratitude, taking care of your people.

Employee experience covers the whole lifecycle, from not being even a candidate until someone leaves the company, voluntarily or involuntarily. However, although virtue resides in the middle, the company’s culture is founded on how your organization behaves in the extremes, hence, how you attract/ approach candidates and how you deal with leavers: Ergo, favorable times, and turbulent times.

What is turbulence?

Among the characteristics that distinguish turbulence from other critical situations are its large and uncontrollable scale, high velocity and fluctuation, its cascading effect, and unclear patterns of evolution, leading to a chaotic situation.

Turbulence can come about because of both external and internal factors. It is commonly accepted that today’s organizations (in both the public and private sectors) operate in an increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous environment (the VUCA or BANI worlds). Yet in times of turbulence, the situation quickly deteriorates and becomes explosive, full of conflict, insecurity, and unpredictability, and people involved can become polarized and unreasonable. This leads to irrational demands that make no sense from a logical perspective, and leaders have to face strong and relentless opposition that could escalate the conflict to the next level.

"A leader is like a coach in a sports team: he has to line up the team and select who and where they play, but s/he shouldn’t pretend to be the one alone in the spotlight if they win."

Internal factors leading to turbulence are mostly due to significant changes in company strategy, resulting from a deteriorating performance or M&A activity, for example, as well as internal seismic shifts as a result of leadership succession or cases of serious deception. Very often companies experience turbulence both internally and from the external environment at the same time.

A leader’s role in times of turbulence

Within the last decades, we all got shaken up by crises like the dot-com bubble in 2000, the subprime crisis in 2008, and the coronavirus we have faced since 2020. During these times, we all are searching for leaders, who guide us through the fog of uncertainty and give us hope and confidence. Every crisis has winners and losers, but every crisis also offers an opportunity. It is our responsibility as leaders to prepare our organization for the future afterward. Did you treat your employees well? Did you forecast wisely and carefully to avoid delivering bad news in the future? What are you going to change the next time?

Great leaders emerge in tough times. During tough times leaders … conceive a new vision, create belief in the new vision and transform employee fears into excitement. There would be a shopping list of leadership attributes that every leader should have to stand out in these circumstances but here are a few tips:

Tell the truth – transparency. No one knows the secret sauce to decode the future, but leaders are bounded to inspire others and give them all safety for business purposes. Transparency drives safety and safety leads to commitment.

Build trust. During uncertain times, stress and anxiety grow exponentially. To enable people to cope with this, a leader should give them autonomy and control over decisions relating to themselves.

Set the tone. Act as though all eyes are on you (because they are), acknowledge that this is a challenging time and display empathy through communicating and connecting to your team more than usual, and listen to what they have to say, you will be surprised afterward.

Establish a clear vision. Balance short- and long-term needs, help your team re-prioritize, operate with a long-term view, and take responsibility. A leader is like a coach in a sports team: he has to line up the team and select who and where they play, but s/he shouldn’t pretend to be the one alone in the spotlight if they win. S/he always knows what the plan is and what is going on, s/he stands behind the scenes throughout and is always ready to make the right changes if necessary and keep the team winning.

In a high-risk, high-stake, and highly insecure environment, the focus shifts to what is really important. In times of turbulence, motivating and inspiring others is more important than ever. The role the leader plays should be one of stability, s/he should be aware of what is going on, and how the situation is developing on the ground and be ready to intervene only in case of problems.

As in the air, turbulence will pass through, but when the captain acts as a trusted leader, s/he will advise the passengers ahead with transparency and will guide the aircraft through the best route to have a smooth transition through it and get the desired direction.

Then, is the business strategy a choice? The answer is crystal clear, not at all. The strategy provides direction and guidance to everyone: employees, customers, stakeholders, and shareholders. This direction drives safety; subsequently, this safety drives commitment and trust in leaders to go together through these turbulent times.

Any leader worth their salt is asking how to support their team members. After all, these are hard times and leaders must consider how they sustain both people and performance moving forward.