“May you live in interesting times” – well we do now.
Some recommendations for company leaders as they manage the transition of their teams to full home-office set up as we all go into lockdown mode. Assume this will take at the very least four weeks, so plan ahead for at least that long.
This is definitely not business as usual so here’s how one might stage the communication into the overall organization:
Week 0: Settle in. This will take a while. First and foremost: Stay safe and take care of your family.
Week 1: Where do we stand as a company. How’s our financing and our runway. What do we hear from our customers, if anything.
Week 2: Have the teams settled in? Is everybody working OK? Share best practice and relevant anecdotes. Make no mistake: We are at work.
Week 3: This is not business as usual. We’ve been there before, maybe even twice – 2000 and 2008. What worked for us then? What does that mean now?
Week 4: Now that we’ve all settled in and all the systems are functioning, let’s think about the bigger picture and the next three months. Business will be slowing down, for us and for our customers and partners. How do we deal with that. By taking the time to “sharpen the saw”.
What does that mean for:
- the company: things we wanted to do but never had the time (processes, tools, reorgs)
- the teams: stuff we wanted to learn and master
- individuals: things you wanted to learn and/or teach.
- product: pull some more difficult roadmap items and start cracking some hard nuts
- partners and customers: training, training, training – let’s reach out and learn together.
olivergajek 