Crisis Management: A 5 Step Plan

When the world is dealing with COVID 19 (the novel coronavirus outbreak), quite a few places economy is slowing down. The impact is across industries and the financial sector. 

In the recent Singapore Budget 2020 Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat mentioned

“All nations big or small have to devise strategies and mobilise their people to navigate these changes and turbulence”. 

International banks, Fintech industry which has expanded strongly into China in recent years due to novel coronavirus outbreak putting in place travel bans, initiating Business Continuity Plans/Management. A crisis can hit the economy and sales anytime. There is a possibility you might lose an enormous deal, equity trading volume will be down and so it can also affect the nature of business. 

It’s not a matter of whether the crisis will hit or not, but how well your business is prepared. Check out the five-step crisis management plan below.

 1. Prioritize during crisis 

If you have set expectations, targets based on training, summits, seminars and the training budget is taken away from your department then it’s something to worry about. 

When the crisis hits your team, don’t just keep with you. The implications of crisis can be mild to severe. Prioritize and allocate time and resources. The right CRM tool can ease sharing the information. 

 2. Brainstorm with your Team

 As a leader, ask the team how they can maximize the output. Everyone is unique and that’s one of the reasons why you have hired them. Engage and record employee performance this will impact employee engagement on the business. Ask for ideas, thoughts, feedback, how they can create next quarter business plan? This will not only strengthen your team but will also result in gaining more confidence and control over such a crisis. 

3. Leaders strengthen the squad

 I still remember one of my training sessions with Jeremy Carter where he said 

“Leadership is about looking in a different direction. While managers spend much of their time looking down, leaders spend more time looking up to find blue sky opportunities and also forward to the future.” 

One must provide the framework, strategic guidance support by an extended team to address those activities which need to get through in such unexpected times.

Keep checking with your team, bring out your human touch and take out time to ask how are they doing? At times, some might not even reach out to you for help on their own. Give a pause in this chaos and ask them about their challenges and offer them resources. It is in our most challenging moments that we are truly defined. 

 4. Keep your Work environment and your team safe 

This ongoing situation means that employees can potentially be impacted. Empathize towards your people, show them you are concerned about well being and not just the performance. Review travel rules, use communication platforms like Zoom meetings, Skype calls.

This the time you can add remote working concepts which also helps to enhance trust between the leader and the team. Some organizations also introduce working in shifts.

For example, if one team is working from home/ remote working for another team on the same floor can work in an office, follow MOH’s guidance. Create safe ways to exercise the arrangements. This is also important so that you can provide a safe place for employees. 

5. Focus on Goals and Values 

Support your team, take a step back and check your sales pipeline. Clean the unwanted leads. Follow up with unresponsive qualified leads and source new ones. Partner with the outside sales team who can understand your pain points and help you to get qualified leads. This is also the time where you can build a new sales pipeline for your entire year.

Once the crisis is nearing to an end, you’ll be able to work with your new sales team as the partnered company will do the legwork to bring the right prospects into your business for your team to close. As a long term goal, you can identify to expand your internal sales team or determine a combination of outsourcing for your pipeline and hiring full-time employees who work well for your company.

It’s a proven fact the response time for crisis is measured in months whereas recovery measured in years. Do your best in crisis management, strengthen your team pipelines and help them upgrade their skills.

Talk to us and discover how we can help grow your business.