KOI WEBINARS | EP. 3 | 6.4.20
HOW TO MANAGE IN A CRISIS
Given the current state of things, business management practices have seen a shift - that being said, the core of managing hasn't changed. Jeff Loehr, owner of Engage Storytelling & co-founder of the Westchester Angels, will talk about the challenge of managing through crisis situations and provide six steps for how to manage your business now and prepare for the future.
About Jeff Loehr: Jeff has been building businesses and advising CEO's for over twenty years. He has helped some of the largest companies in the world to reinvent themselves and some of the smallest startups to invent themselves for the first time. He thinks the point of business is to help humans live better lives. His mission is to help entrepreneurs and business owners live extraordinary lives by creating businesses that powers that life rather than sucking the energy out of it. He is currently the COO of Rosenberg Chesnov and a managing director of the Westchester Angels an early-stage investment group.
COMPLETE TRANSCRIPT:
Jeff:
My name is Jeff lair and I have been really advising companies around the world for the past 20 years. Let me share my screen here, cause that's going to be just much more fun for us to follow the slides and test, look at me the whole time. So, so you, rather than the standard, you know head, head shot, I just turned it upside down a little bit. Look at things from a slightly different perspective. You can see this, you see me standing on my hand,
Jonathan:
That's you. Hey, nice.
Jeff:
So, so, you know, and, and, and, and as you guys know, right in, in addition to being a business advisor and advising businesses really both through crises and through strategic changes and through growth you know, in addition to that, I, I do teach yoga. And one of the things that I've been working on over the past six months is how I bring those, the different teachings and ways of teaching together and, and, and to provide my own you know, coaching program and, and, and really focused on business, but my focus is on how to how to advance slides. So, so my focus, my mission to help entrepreneurs live an extraordinary life by creating a business that powers that life rather than sucking the energy out of it. So this is what I work on. The problem that I see is that far too many businesses are just work generating machines rather than life generating machines.
Jeff:
So, so I'm looking at, at how we can actually change that. And at the moment I work with Rosenberg, Tesla, and an accounting firm here in, in Westchester, they do great work supporting startups and getting all of the, the sort of financial pieces together. And what's exciting about Rosenberg Chesnoff is they also do a lot of this advisory work. So we bring the advisory work into the, the accounting work, so that we're actually helping companies do better, not just reporting on their financials. And then for anybody who wants to read some of my ramblings and concepts, you can follow me at Jeff leora.com. So that's a little bit about me. And then what we said would go through today is this idea of managing a crisis and how to manage in a crisis. And, and like I said, I've been working in, in advisory and helping people think through these things for for about 20 years now, I've, I've dealt with crises ranging from economic crises, you know, in 2008, 2009 timeframe to problems with dictators, trying to take over our operations to issues with, with negotiations and, and theft, and I mean, all kinds of crises.
Jeff:
Right? And and, and what I've discovered is really that there are three levels of managing crises. There are three ways that we have to think about this, right? And, and the first level is really the idea of managing self. So, so when you're in a crisis situation or any management situation, but you have to start with management itself. And, and that's just the idea of putting your mask on first, right? So you've got to put the mask on first, before you can help anybody off, and then you have to develop whatever your principles are, right? What are the principles for management? What are the values? What are the ways that you think about management? So, so in this case, you know, to continue the analogy of putting the mask on first, it's really, you put the mask on first so that you can breathe, be calm and survive, right?
Jeff:
Because if you don't put the mask on first, then you're dying. And then you're trying to put the mask on your kids and you can't breathe, and you can't put the mask on the kids. So everything falls apart and you can't get anything done, right? So you have to put the mask on first, as you can breathe, because survive, those are the principles, right? And then you take actions. So the actions that you might take right are to help others with their mask and in the case of, of, of the airplane, right? So those are the actions that you would take. In this case, we take actions to build a business and, and I'll talk starting from self self as the more esoteric sort of woo concept, right about, about who we are. And then we move into principles, which is a little bit more detailed.
Jeff:
And then I'll spend a little bit more time just going through some of the actions, because those are the practical things that we want to do now. But the only way you can do the actions is if you've met itself and established your principles. Sound good? Yeah. So when it comes to managing self, th the thing to keep in mind is, you know, that we exist within a context, right? So right now we exist within a context, we existed in a context of a, you know, right now Rome is burning, right? The world seems to be coming to an end and, and we've got riots and we've got violence. And, and we, we've got looting. And, and it's almost interesting to think that on top of that layered in with that, we've got this idea of global pandemic and, and this virus is actually killing people.
Jeff:
So, so at the same time, right? It's not, it's not coincidence that it's the same time, the same time we have these crises. And what that leads to obviously is dramatic, dramatic change in the economy, right? Like, it's, it is amazing how quickly the economy has shifted. This has never happened in the history of economies that we know of, right? Nothing like this has happened. Then we go from 4% unemployment in unemployed, unemployment to 30%, unemployment does not happen. And yet it did. Right. That's where we are. And, and to a lot of people just feels like the end of the world, right. And this has an end of the world feeling, feeling to it. So what I like to do now is I like to then take people and say, all right, take a moment. So you guys, as my participants, you take a moment and just think about how this will impact you. And if you're watching the recording, take a moment and think about how this could impact you. Write down a couple of bullet points. How will the end of the world impacts you? Your smile, Ryan, what you think I'm not tricking you here. I just want you to write it down. I want you to focus for a moment on all of the things that are possibly going to happen to destroy,
Jeff:
Because there are a lot out there
Jon:
[Inaudible]. So we're talking about things that are going to happen to end the world, or what would be affected.
Jeff:
I'm saying with everything, with the context that's going on around you, how is it potentially going to impact you? Right. Got it. And some of the things that come up are things like, I might lose my job. I might lose my life. My kids might lose it. Like I can't get educated. Right? Like there's a lot of potential things that can happen. And so, so the next question that I like to ask is to rate, rate your anxiety.
Jeff:
And if you at your anxiety from a one to 10, right. One you're completely calm. And, and, and 10, you know, that you, you, you, you can't get anything done due to anxiety, right.
Jon:
And you know, it's wrong for you pose that question. I was at a one before you start, I'm about an eight right now.
Jeff:
So now you're at an eight. Right? And that's what, that's what happened. That's what happens if you go out and you pay attention to what's going on in the world, right? The anxiety goes up like that. And that brings in a level of anxiety. And that eight, that conversation is, is deep in the amygdala. On the left hand side, you know, that's where that eight resides deep within the reptilian brain deeply in the part of the brain that has that fight or flight response. Right. And that anxiety, when, when you sit in that anxiety, that's where you're making decisions. But the problem is that we need to make decisions using the neocortex on the right hand side. And if you're in that state of anxiety, if you're in that eight space, you don't have access to the neocortex. You don't have access to the thinking space. So you have to find a way to calm down the fight or flight response, because you cannot good decisions if you're caught in fight or flight,
Jeff:
Right. You cannot make a decision. So you have to find a way to create space. And when people tell me it's the end of the world, or it feels like it, the end of the world, my response is always, yeah, it's not that the end of the world is going to happen. The end of the world has happened. It's over the world that you knew is completely gone. Right. We lost John put the world that we knew is gone, right? And it's like, you can't unsee what you've seen. We can't undo. What's been done. It is done. Right. But on the other hand, the world continues to exist, right? It's just our perception of it. And the fact of the matter is that today is not any less, certain than three months ago.
Jeff:
And there's a, there's a mythology that, Oh, things are uncertain today, but they're not uncertain today. I was giving a workshop in February where we were talking about a strategy for the next year. We laid it all out with certainty. Guess what? None of that's happening because the world came up, came apart, right? The uncertainty was there. We just didn't know about it today. The uncertainty is still there and we know about it. That's all that's changed if we have more clarity. So we have to bring the attention back onto the journey and recognize the fact that we're on this journey. And we have to find a way to pay attention to the journey and not just be stuck in all of the shit that's happening around us. So how do we do that? And Viktor Frankl said between stimulus and response, there's a space.
Jeff:
And in that space is our power to choose our response. And in our response lies our growth and our freedom. Now, Viktor Frankl discovered this as a as a prisoner in a concentration camp in world war II. And he discovered that there was a space between the PR his perception of the world that he was in and how he lived within that perception. And that by, by separating himself from what was going on, he could choose his response. He could work on his book, he could do other things in his mind, right. And a lot of people discovered this in the concentration camps. And if Victor Frankel can do it right in that kind of a condition than we can do it in the situation that we're in today, because it's not nearly as bad as what he was going through. So how do we create space? I'm going to give you four strategies, but the first one is dead, easy, dead, easy. It is just simply gratitude. You hear this in so many forums, count your blessings, be thankful for what you have, keep a journal. Right. And I guarantee if you take a moment now and just write down a couple of things that you're grateful for, right? So if you're watching the recording, pause this, write it. You guys can, can write something down. Now, if you write something down now that you're, that you're grateful for.
Jeff:
And if you focus on that, then rate your anxiety.
Jeff:
And in all likelihood, you'll find that your anxiety has come down, right? Because, because you're taking the focus away from the fact that it's the end of the world, and you're focusing on the things that are right here and matter to you in the present moment some other ways to create. So, so this is how we can start to make space so that we don't get stuck in that anxiety. Another way to make space is really just to take a breath, right? Here's the yoga coming in, but it really makes a huge difference. Right? Take a breath, take five breath. That deep breath is going to calm the amygdala. Okay. That deep breath is going to signal to the brain that you're OK. Another way to breathe is what I call square breathing, where you might inhale for four seconds, hold it for four seconds, exhale for four seconds, hold empty for four seconds. And then you go around in a, in a, in a square it's just concentrated breathing. And it takes your mind off of all the things that are happening and focus them on the breath. Right. And the third one is to bring the focus on the now. So you can do that by focusing on your senses on what's happening to you right now, rather than what's happening to you in a, in a completely separate part of the world.
Jeff:
So that's my that, you know, that's where I think we need to start. When we talk about crisis management, any thoughts or questions before I move on?
Jonathan:
No, it's funny. It's like the principles for, you know, best ways to be happy and angry, right. Are very similar. It's just coming from the other side.
Jeff:
It's the same thing, because the difference is what makes you unhappy as all of the crap? Like you can't be unhappy if you're in the moment, because there isn't, the unhappiness is the ego bringing things in from outside, but it's also key to making good decisions. And so it's not just about being happy. It's about how are you going to make good decisions,
Jeff:
Right. And you can only make good decisions when you're not in fight or flight. So, so, so once we have the self under control, right? Once we were separating between all of the shit that's happening and and, and, and ourselves, and what that means, right? Then we can start talking about principles of management. I want to suggest certain principles of management, certain ways to be in a crisis. And this is certainly true COVID, but I've also found it to be true. You know, when a dictator is taking over your mind, or when you're, you're managing a riot at a, at an operation or, you know, whatever the issues are, right. These principles tend to be pretty pretty valuable. Okay. So, so the first one is just to reduce stimuli. So one of the things that creates the need to create space is the fact that we're always on and always paying attention to everything that's going on.
Jeff:
So if you shut that down, it's like you said, John, you were at a one until I brought up all of the things and it's that those stimulated to create the need to make space. So you can reduce the stimuli, check the news once a day, not once every five minutes, right? The second one is to get clarity and to work on what you can. So there's stuff that you can control and stuff that you cannot control. And if your focus is always on the stuff that you cannot control, then that is going to be self-defeating. So you have to bring the focus back to what you can control, get clarity about what you can control, what you can do. Right. I prefer to give these talks in front of a live audience, because then I get feedback. I know what's going on. I can't do that.
Jeff:
So I give the talks where I can get it done. And the third one is to let go of what was and focus on what is. So we have a tendency to say, well, my business was, I don't know how many I've talked to so many clients. They said I was making $300,000 a month. Now I'm making 40, the world has come to an end, say, well, okay, I get that. I get how that feels. But that $300,000 a month, it's gone. And it's not, it's not just going to come back tomorrow. It's gone. So you have to focus on what is today on what you're building today on what's in front of you today. And all of that time spent on bemoaning. What was in the past is just wasted time.
Jeff:
The next one is to shift from scarcity to abundance. So we have a zero generally as human beings is this zero sum game mentality where my win is your loss. Your win is my law. And you know, that does not help us in a crisis situation, any crisis situation, because if I'm worried about creating a win for you, rather than creating a win for both of us, it's just self-defeating right. So if we can shift and I actually recommend, this is one thing I see for entrepreneurs all the time shift away from this idea of a zero sum game, move towards the idea of abundance, right? There is plenty for everybody. And so with that in mind, you shift from trying to worry about the past and remake, what was in defeat, the situation to working on helping others and solving problems, right? And if you can focus your time and energy on helping others and solving problems that eventually is going to pay you back, right? That event is going to come back to you in terms of your business, in terms of growth, in terms of the problem that you're trying to solve.
Jeff:
The next one is really to compassion because, you know, we, we are in a situation where people are struggling. Some people are struggling to pay their bills. People are struggling to you know, get to work. People are struggling to work because they've got kids at home and, and bad internet connections, and they have to go to the office in the rain to get stable connections and everything's falling apart. Right. John, I mean, th the there's a lot going on here and, and we can really be upset with everybody, or we can find ways to practice, compassion and give each other space. I don't know how many zoom calls I've been on, where kids have come into them, you know, babies screaming in the background, dogs, you know, it's fine. We practice compassion. Right. and, and if you think of how it'd be nice, if, if, if our police practice a little bit more compassionate, right. And then the fact that the last one is to act, because I think that one of the challenges we face is that people tend to get really stuck in inaction. They tend to get stuck in
Jeff:
I don't know how to, how to describe it, other than that, other than like, it's the, the allure of Netflix and the couch, you know, that every day blends into another day and I'm at home and, and I can just not act. And, and even if it's not Netflix in the couch, I see a lot of business people who are just stuck, you know, and they just can't take action. They're just confused about it. And, and so I think no matter what you do, if you, if, if you act then you're moving in the right direction. So, so these are the principles that I like to suggest, right? I think the more important thing is not necessarily that you follow my principles, there's a bullet missing, I don't know where the bullet went, but this is supposed to have a bullet here. Let go of what was it's not about following my principles. I think these are pretty good. I find these useful it's, it's, it's about establishing what your principles are, right? Because once you've mastered self and you say, okay, this is where I am. That self helps you choose what your response is going to be.
Jeff:
Right. So when Victor Frankel, when he's sitting there in his, in, in the concentration camp, he uses that to choose what his response is going to be. And then he responds based on his values and his principles, the way he sees things. And we can respond based on our values and our principles and the way we see things, or you can use mine. Cause they're pretty good in there. Come on. You can do better. No, but but I want to pause there. Right. And, and see if you guys have any questions, if anybody's on, if they have any questions.
Jonathan:
No. If I have any questions, I just, I think a lot of this rings true. And especially given like the, the current, the current situation of things. I mean, I mean, the fact of inaction, I mean, I feel like before that was always like a paralysis or an analysis paralysis, kind of a thing. And now it's just straight up I'm one day bleeds into the next, as you mentioned, so that the thought or the idea of getting up and doing anything is all of a sudden, there's so much more weight attached to
Jonathan:
I'm like the action that dictates everything to the future. So you want to make sure you take the right action. Right. Like right now it feels like, all right,
Speaker 3:
True. Can I choose is going to be the math forever, right. Yeah. It's just because you know, I've done that.
Jeff:
You now have so much more importance. Right. Have any more important, right. It's actually not same thing.
Jeff:
I think, you know, I don't, I'm not perfect, but, but you know, I think that the actions that we take now, we're just building and we have to see what, what they lead to, but inaction leads to nothing. And I actually think it's the same thing as analysis processes. Right. Because now what we're doing is we're analyzing our situation. Should I, you know, should I act, or should I not act, should I do it? Should I not? Am I doing the right thing? Am I not doing the right thing? It's actually the same thing. Like if you are prone to announce profits, as I am in good times, right. Then that is just going to kill you in, in times like these, right. Because you're going to be stuck with that same uncertainty around what you should do. And that causes a drive to run away and hide, at least in my world. I don't know. You know, I just want to dig a hole in the sand, stick my head in and hope for the world to come to an end. I, I don't, I don't know if you saw, there was this guy who was on a retreat 75 day silent retreat, you know, when he comes back thinking, man, I want to go on a retreat right now.
Jeff:
But that's not my that's not my, my calling to be on a retreat at the moment. So yeah. Yeah. Any other thoughts.
Jonathan:
Not really.
Jonathan:
It's kind of fallen into place here.
Jeff:
So what that leads to is the action right now. Everybody always wants the actions. We want to start with the actions they want. They want me to tell them, well, what do I have to do now that I have a business, right? So this is the part we have to take notes because this is the part that people really care about. But I guarantee you that you cannot take the actions in a way that is consistent with what you want and delivers the results that you want. If you haven't first mastered itself and established what your principles are, right? You must master yourself and you must establish your principles. Otherwise you just take random actions and that doesn't build to the thing that you wanted to build.
Jeff:
So so I like to start with the idea that there is no normal, right? That there's, there's this conversation that's happening around the new normal and the old normal, and when will things return to normal and what is normal? And it's all completely ridiculous. There is no normal, there is no such thing as normal change is the only constant, right? It will continue to change forever. There is nothing that's normal, right? We are, we exist in a world of uncertainty with all of the challenges that uncertainty presents for us. So the things that we actually do in a situation like this are very similar to the things that we have to do in a, in an, in a non-crisis situation, right? It's just a puzzle that needs to be solved. We just have to look at the problem and come up with what the solution.
Jeff:
Now, what is different, right? Is it a lot of businesses are in crisis. Like the business that I talked about, they have $300,000 a month. Now they have $6,000 a month and they're building back up to 40, but right. What happens in that case? How do you deal with that kind of a situation? So it's not that we're building from strength. We're all building from that from, from from a crisis type of situation. So the way to think about it, it's the same way that you think about delivering first aid. So have any of you ever been to a first aid course? I know John, we were talking before and about how you're going to have to do first aid. Right. Have you done it yet?
Jonathan:
I did it. I did it.
Jeff:
What's the first step in giving first date.
Jonathan:
The first step is giving first aid is checking
Jonathan:
For sure.
Jonathan:
Breath. I feel like this is a tricky one. I don't know. Depends. It's pretty a first day general. Like where we go?
Jeff:
I, I thought, I thought this was pretty universal. Maybe not, but in my world is pretty universal. Right? The first step to giving first aid. If you've got somebody who's up there and their arm is gushing blood, you know, it's been
Jonathan:
In an accident. Right, right.
Jeff:
If you've got to stop the bleeding.
Jonathan:
Oh, okay. Alright. Alright. So getting guy at a restaurant or like a, what was going on choking got a restaurant he's joking,
Jeff:
Right? You've got to identify, okay, he's choking. You got to get him out of the choking position into a home lift maneuver, and then you have to make a plan to actually deliver that. Right. And with choking is very fast with somebody, you know, in my mind that somebody is in an auto accident, you know, on the freeway and they've got, you know, you've got to do the tourniquet and you've got to figure out, okay, first I got to stop the bleeding. Right? And then you've got to make a plan for how you're going to administer first aid. And then you actually have to deliver the cure. Right? You have to act. And again, it's this idea of action that comes into it, right? But you stop the bleeding, you make a plan, you do the same thing with your business. And I love this quote from Einstein. I don't actually think Einstein ever said this by the way, but it's attributed to Einstein. And he's such a great picture to put on a slide, you know, really attributes authority to the person, giving the speech that I'm just going to stick with it. Right. If I had an hour to save the world, I'd spend 55 minutes defining the problem in five minutes, solving it.
Jonathan:
Yeah.
Jeff:
And the first thing we have to do, if you're looking at your business is you have to figure out what you have to do to solve the business problem. And then you can work on solving it, right? And the first step to that is that you create some sort of budget and track cash. So this is the first part of stop stopping. The bleeding is knowing where your money is going, right? And it's amazing how many people don't know where their money is going, but get a handle on the financial situation, know what the financial situation is going to be. Forecast your revenue, forecast, your profit, what money is coming in, right? Forecast your costs, what is fixed and what is variable. And remember that in the long run and we're in the long run, all costs are variable. Everything is negotiable, right? And it sounds a little basic, but this is what has to happen.
Jeff:
This is how you start managing your business. This is how you get clarity. It's one of the principles, right? This is how you define the problem. Stop the bleeding. If you have to figure out what the situation is, what are your inflows? What are your outfits? And I've got a couple of templates here to help with that, right? So you can get this budget template and, and a burn rate calculator that will help you understand, you know, what the cash situation of the business is, right? And that's where we start to understand the cash situation. And then we find some cash
Jeff:
And finding the caches when you apply for and obtain a SBA or a PPP loan you evaluate your open lines of credit, right? You consider home equity financing. You know, it's interesting. I've talked to people who are now, we're finally getting some of these SBA loans, right? And people are asking me, well, should I take the SBA loan? Should I even do this? Well, if you're bleeding, you've got to stop the bleeding. You've got to bring in the cash. And if that's going to cost you something, it's going to cost you something, but it gives you a way to be ready for what's coming tomorrow. You've got to stop the bleeding. So finance, you know, Nick, and you can negotiate with lenders and creditors. You can talk to your banks for deferral options. I mean, it's amazing how the banks have been very forgiving at the moment.
Jeff:
There are lots of deferral options on loans. There are lots of deferral options on mortgages. There are lots of ways to find cash and stop that, that outflow by talking to the banks and talking to the creditors, right? On the other hand, you want to pay the bills you can. So your payment is my income. My payment is your income. So, so there's sort of this balance between doing making sure that you're stopping the bleeding and that you're also doing the right thing by the people that are around you. And that's why you have to come back to the principles, right? So what is, what is principled for you? Maybe I can't afford to pay you the full price, but I pay you that, you know what I can, you know, and then we agree on something deferred later. I don't know whatever that situation is, but, but this is really the first stop in, in terms of business actions, right? Is to stop the bleeding by creating a budget, understanding what the situation is, getting your clarity, and then finding the cash to be able to stay alive.
Jeff:
From there we go to making a plan. So I, I love this quote from one of our angel investors. You know, we have two types of companies in our portfolio. Some are saying it is a great time for development. We've got our heads down and we're going to make unbelievable strides in the next year, not two months. And then we have the whiners we're investing in the developers, right. Comes back to the action, comes back to do they have a plan for what they're going to do, and the ones who've structured a plan, and they know how they're going to execute. They can take advantage of this time, the ones who don't have to sit back and hope that it goes away. So there's this idea of creating a strategy, right? And I'm going to just talk quickly through the idea of creating a scenario strategy, because I think everybody should look at this for the moment.
Jeff:
I think about what the future is going to be. How are your, how is your business, that business that you just defined in the first couple of steps going to exist tomorrow next year, a year from now three years from now. And you really have to do that in a structured way. The first step is to define the game. What do you do? What is your impact? What is the problem? You solve, know what you do check it's relevant, right? So if you're a virologist at the moment, you've got a lot of opportunity, right? If you're a fitness instructor, you've got some issues, you're going to have to figure out how to solve in a different way. And you have to identify the uncertainties. What is out there that you do not know what is out there that you don't know, how, what could possibly change in the world around you, right?
Jeff:
And the more you can understand what uncertain, the more you can start planning them by creating the scenario. So you can look at how might these uncertainties play out? What might the future look like? And then once you create the scenario, you identify options for your business. So when the uncertainties play out in certain ways, right, then you can come back and say, well, what are the options that I can do within each one of those scenarios? And then finally you choose the options for the things that you want to pursue. So I'll give you just a quick and then choose options. And then you create a plan with the targets and the metrics. So a book that I recommend to think about this is the mind of a Fox, very useful way for thinking about scenario strategy. And it's built on the principle that you should assume that the world is going to change, that you embrace the uncertainty inherent in that.
Jeff:
And so you're always looking for new idea and the scenarios that I am working with for a moment for the moment are, are these where, you know, I, I, I think the big uncertainties in the world, the big scenario axes, if you will, or whether we, as societies can, can go towards an infinite game or whether we get stuck in this zero sum game, right? So are we going to be at each other's throats? Or we wouldn't realize that there's plenty out there for us to create. And then there's the question as to whether the system's crumble or the system's hole, right? And you can think about what it means, the systems crumble, and we're in an infantry game, we're in a world of reinvention. If we're in an infinite game and systems hold, we've got a nice, strong renewal, we've got the same systems, but we're open to new things, systems hold.
Jeff:
And it's a zero sum game. We get into a martial law, right? So, you know, Trump and the Republicans they're martial law territory, let's bring in the military. Right. What does that mean for your business? What does your business look like in a martial law situation? A system's crumble with a zero sum game, you know, broken world. This is anarchy. There are a lot of people who are calling for NRP at the moment. So I use this and then look at this in terms of, well, what are the options that my business has, or my client's business have in each one of these. And then we can think about which ones are the options that are common in each one, and which ones are the ones that, that, you know, are flyers that we need to be careful with. What do we delay, but using this type of structure helps you think and plan for the uncertainty. So my fourth step then is to develop an employment strategy. So now, now that you know, what your options are, you got to deal with your team and your people, right? And when you have the strategy, you know, where, where you're going to go, you've got your plan. How are you going to resource that plan? And I don't know, have you guys seen the, the WeightWatchers versus the Airbnb example of laying people off?
Jonathan:
No,
Jeff:
It's a wonderful example. I mean, truly wonderful because you know, it, it comes back to your principals, the way you do things that come back to print the way you lay people off comes back to your principles. Weightwatchers right. Call people in via zoom tens at a time and said, Hey, in three minutes, you guys are laid off goodbye.
Jonathan:
No.
Jeff:
And, and the reason they did that, as I said, well, it was too annoying to have in person phone, too annoying to have in person calls. Right. Too annoying to have in person conversations. Airbnb had to let go of, I can't remember, you know, thousands of people you know, but they did it with, with respect. You know, they, they told people, they had one on one conversation. They agreed to write. They wrote you know, recommendation letters for these people. They turned their recruitment, you know the department into an outsourcing department, finding jobs for people, right. They gave them their computer. They gave them equity in the company. So even if their equity hadn't invested, they gave them the equity in the company. So they were still vested in the company. Right. So even though these people are being laid off, they are still advocate to Airbnb.
Jeff:
And, and I think what, what I'm seeing is that there's a lot of, you know, a lot of companies out there following the weight Watchers model. But the opportunity is in defining, defining your principles and how you think about it and, and perhaps following more of the Airbnb model, right? Because that is an infinite game. That is the opportunity for you to have people come back in the future. So from there, you have to think about who your vital and nonvital employees are. You can negotiate with people and consultant, appointment, attorney around furloughs, layoffs, and voluntary unpaid time. You know, and I've seen a lot of people come up with creative solutions around how can we implement some of these options that we have identified and developed and decided are critical for our company. Even though we don't have enough money, we can use some of this PPP money for that.
Jeff:
Right. We can bet on the future, but if there's no cash, there's no cash. How are we going to do this? And, and there are a lot of interesting creative solutions that are coming up for those who are thinking about how to create a business for the future, rather than get stuck in in, in the paradigm of the past. Right. And, and that's the last point. So how can you engage people in creating that future, even as you have to change, even if you have to have those difficult conversations. Right. So I also have a point there around delegation versus abdication. So by focusing on the things that matter, you can delegate work rather than abdicate work, but it doesn't really fit here. So we'll just pretend it doesn't exist. Cut that out later. Okay, John so the idea behind making a plan, you create a business strategy, you create an employment strategy or resources strategy.
Jeff:
How are you going to deliver on that plan that you have? And then finally you have to take action, right? So this is really about implementing solutions. What are the things that you have to do now create projects that you didn't, that you have wanted to do, but haven't had time, you know, build your website do zoom calls, right? Create different options for your business, build relationships. Like this is a great time for loss leaders, right? This is the only time when the bank is going to give you a break on the mortgage. So you can say, I can work for you for free to demonstrate my capabilities so that you hire me for lots of money later. You know, and, and this is the time to build those relationships. And the more we can focus on implementing solution to building those relationships, the better off the businesses are going to be in the future.
Jeff:
And the final piece of the communicate. And, and this is, you know, whether you're communicating with your employees, with your clients, with your partners, if you ignore everything else in my stop, the bleeding make a plan and cure process. Don't forget this one because it's, it's the communication and the engagement of people that is going to keep them around that is going to give you options in the future. And I've seen so many crises manage. I mean, I've had to deal with massive. I had to deal with two large scale union, very contentious union negotiations. And in one of them, we communicated, communicated, communicated, communicated, obsessively, right. All the time. And I won't say it went smoothly, but we negotiated, we avoided a strike. They got with some of what they wanted. We got some of what we wanted. We came to it, we came to a peaceful resolution, right.
Jeff:
And in the second one, the managers refuse to communicate and it went straight to a Stripe, you know, and I think that's the difference. If we communicate, we can make things happen if we don't communicate when the hands of everybody else. So that's, yeah, my that's my business actions model, right? And the whole thing coming together is you have to make space, stop, fight, or fight, get perspective. Then we've got the seven principles, and then we've got the six actions that you need to take as a business in order to to go forward and thrive and to create that extraordinary business. So again, thoughts, comments.
Jonathan:
I think it's just great how this is how this is laid out, or there's, there's almost an actionable step guidelines piece here. I think when you take this and then gray area, that it is in the real world, when you don't have a bullet list, it's hard to put this stuff together. But when you say, start here, then go here, then go here. And each thing has some as a subset, it's a, it's almost like, Oh yeah, it's not so bad. You know, it's more palatable, manageable.
Jeff:
The, the problem with this presentation is there are a lot of lists and I get that right. But, but the reason I'm giving people all these lists and trying to, to, to, to have lots of bullets and not the way they're thinking about this is for that reason that I think that is more actionable that way, when you break it up into chunks and then you can, you can do it. And you can think different times about self, the principles and the actions that you have to take. And did you start from the center and go out, then it really directs your actions. And that's my point with the WeightWatchers versus Airbnb, is it, if, if you are principled and you know, what your principles are, it's going to guide you to that weight Watchers. I'm going to just fire people via zoom in a heartless senseless way, or I'm going to be more engaging versus to Airbnb. And, and as much as I put a qualifier on that and say that weight Watchers is heartless and senseless, you know, they're following their principle. That's the way their organization is. You know, and, and the problem becomes when they, when they want to be something else and they're not living by it. Right.
Jonathan:
That's hard to shake in this day and age too. I mean, you have one, one big, bad press story like that, and it's a, it follows you around haunts you across digital and physical space for a very long time. It's hard. It's hard to get rid of that.
Jeff:
Well, it, it does, but it's, you know, it's also one of those things where it takes different, different people have different approaches, right? So, so it may be that people relate to that approach. More like I relate to the Airbnb approach. I suspect you relate to the Airbnb approach, but there are a lot of people who may relate more to the weight Watchers approach. You know,
Jonathan:
It also sounds like the tradition, the weight Watchers approach is less of an approach, right? They didn't put the time in to think out the real solution. They just said, you know, this is annoying to call this many people and talk to people individually. So it's just lacking in approach,
Jeff:
Reveals their principles, their principles, their principles. We don't give a damn
Jonathan:
Okay. Yeah. Well, and I think, I think they did take an approach. So they just took the approach of path of least resistance, but what's the fastest way to get the job done, you know? And if that's, maybe that isn't the principal level, I don't know. But yeah, I, I agree. And I, again, I think in this day and age, it's it's to some level that's admirable to be efficient, but when it comes at the cost of bringing people in and canning them in groups of three or five or 10 or whatever you said, I mean, you draw a line somewhere, right. Where you need to take the humanistic approach to dealing with just about everything across your company. Right. But if you look, I was going to say, if you look at what we did with coy, right. During this time, like three months, we decided to pause our memberships and we felt like, no, is that the ethical approach that would be kind of returned in kind when, you know, we didn't know how long this was gonna last. This could have been six months and we going to be, I've been out of business, but, you know, at least initially that was the approach that we took. And it didn't take a long time to make that plan, but it was in line with kind of the values that we defined for the company. And it's weird to think about that.
Jeff:
Wow. Pretty strong values inherently built in. Right? Yep.
Jonathan:
Yeah. But it's weird to think that that's like a, that's a self and that's a principle where it's kind of like the, like the do unto others kind of like, do you almost feel like it's a no brainer, but when it comes to a business or a corporation, I mean, it's a different game that you're playing sometimes, you know, and it's, it's hard to, I don't know, like personally and professionally, it's hard to think that there is another way to look at it, but I mean, in the way, watch this example, you see that, that shift, you know, where it's like, yeah. But we have to be efficient. So, alright. It was fun. See you later kind of thing.
Jeff:
So I actually think there is, I think that we're what we're seeing though, is that there are those who are obsessively focused on the return to the investor. So, you know, th the business school method has, has, has that ethos has been this idea of you must deliver the best return to the investor in the short term, right. That's what they teach you at. And when you go to business school and and I think that there's another way to think about it, which is more of a human centric approach. And I think that over time, so in the short term, that investor centric approach will, will yield better return because you fire people more quickly, right? You don't have to put as much time or effort into it in the longterm. I think that the information cycle, the reputation damage and everything that that does do you create the massive issue that, that ends up destroying the company and costing you a fortune in, in, in recreating. And I think that there's, there is an issue when you become too investor centric and not human centric that you end up with with a massive with a problem. And the overtime human centric is better for investors as well.
Jonathan:
Yeah, that makes sense.
Jeff:
All right, guys. So any other questions? Hi there, Scott you down below my screen here. So I guess it was the only thing that, that the other three guys, so and we've got Danny, have you been on the whole time, have you guys been on the whole time?
Jonathan:
It came on about us maybe six, seven minutes ago.
Jeff:
Oh, right. We missed the good part.
Jonathan:
Okay.
Danny:
Yeah. Thanks for walking through. I mean, you're a, you're a great connector and brain in the community, in the industry. I mean, the minutes that I got were were, were awesome.
Jeff:
Well, it's going to be recorded. I mean, I love both of you, your, your thoughts and you know, opinions on this. I, I think that well, this is what I've been guiding people through and now I've been helping them, you know, deliver and, and you know, my, I come back to that human centric mission, which I'm quite passionate about.
Jeff:
But but really thinking through, if you want to execute correctly, going through this, this concept of getting out of that fight or flight, managing the principles or the values of the way you want to engage with the world and then deciding what the actions are. And this is just a model that I come back to all the time and not just because it only has three steps, which I can remember. I can't remember five step models anymore, but I can do three. So, and you can see even my six step model, I have to break into three big steps and then six little steps. Cause I can't do more than three
Jonathan:
On that. I mean, I, what I did catch, I loved the bias towards action. And you know, you, you have it in this seven principles here on this slide, but I caught, you know, the, the project implementation and, and really when you delve into, you got to take action, take action. And I, I love that. I think that's about iteration. I think it's about self discovery too. I think it's about business modeling all with him. You know, those steps, at least from my brain. And I know, you know, all of that, you know, quite well. So whoever is watching this I'd fully trust you know, the, the fuller process that you walk through and I'd love to learn more about it, but I love the bias to action.
Jeff:
Yeah. Well, I think we have to have an, I call it a buy in, in, in my, my writing and the work that I do is a bias towards imperfect action that I'd rather have people take action and, and have it fail to not take action because through the failure you learn how to take the next best action. Whereas, you know, I, I'm, I'm subject to analysis paralysis. You know, I analyze the hell out of everything for four years, given the chance, and then not take action. And that gets you absolutely nowhere. Trust me, you know, and, and that's, that's the so I think that the bias towards action is, is a key one, you know? And, and, and then if you look at the principles, I also say that we have to treat each other with a bit of compassion, you know? So if you take an action, it turns out to not be a perfect action then you know, it's better for me to, to greet that imperfection with compassion than it is to you know, be upset about the fact that you took an imperfect action.
Jonathan:
Yeah. That makes sense. So almost receive outside too. Yeah. Yeah. Works.
Jeff:
What do you think, Scott?
Scott:
I like your approach and model. I just would suggest two additions. I agree. The bias towards prototype or action is great, but it also needs to be differentiated from others. What else is being done in the market rather than being heard as in animals, all going the same direction, you should be doing something different that's impactful. And the one piece that I'll use as a word that's not on your list is impactful.
Jeff:
Yeah. No, I agree. You shouldn't want that
Scott:
For impact is what I would suggest as your alternative. I think that that might come in when it's not managing for a crisis. Right. But that's for impact too. And it was more when it's not a crisis. Right. And then the crisis, like, like without the crisis, the bleeding portion doesn't have this app, let's just have a plan.
Jeff:
Yeah. But I mean, if you think about what, what it is you want to achieve, you know, whatever you want to achieve, you're going in a crisis. You want to think about what is that impact that you want to have? What is it you want to deliver it? If you're just running around curing the problem and you and your, your, you lose that impact. And I think that's really where the principals come in is, is that defines that impact that you want to have. The actions are just the actions. They're just the steps you have to take, but that's why you have to start with who you are and you have to develop the principles. Right. so in, in, in my model for getting the things that you want, you know, we start with the idea of, you have to define that vision. You have to rebuild, what's possible. Define what impact do you want to have. And then you can move into taking the actions that are going to actually get you there.
Jonathan:
So I want to end
Jeff:
Go ahead.
Jonathan:
No, is that, I just think that that helps, that just enables action that much more easily, right? If you know what you're working towards that impact, then the actions become so much more apparent or somewhat more apparent. And you've got that light at the end of the tunnel of thing going on to where you feel like you're not just taking action to take action. You know, it's not just action for action's sake. It's actually moving towards something which is equally as important.
Jeff:
Well, what, what you create by defining the impact you want to have defining what that future is is you, you create a sticktuitiveness, you create the ability to continue to operate, right? Even if you can't feel it at the end of the tunnel, you can see a few feet in front of you, you know, where you're going, and you've got that journey to find, and that is critical to actually getting to the end of the tall, right? When, when you don't have that, when you haven't defined that aspect of what it is you're trying to do, then you just, you're just doing stuff. And the problem I see, you know, not in crisis management, but in, in management in general is if you are just doing stuff, it's not scalable. It's not, growable, it's not human centric. It's just doing stuff. Right. And we see this got with our, with, with with people, pitching us in the angels. They're just doing stuff. There is magic. When you have clearly defined the stuff that you're doing and a plan for delivering it. And you can clearly articulate that. It's like honey and everybody around you is B.
Jeff:
And it's remarkable when that happens. And we can see it when people pitch, when all those things come together, everybody wants to talk to them afterwards and have a beer and invest in the company. Doesn't matter what the product is, but the impact matters.
Scott:
I'll add one observation for where that magic is, is, I mean, you use your word abundance for a moment. There are no bad ideas, just bad timing. Sometimes people are early or late. It's not that their idea's bad. It's just the wrong time. And I think COVID, and the riots or the disruptions are proving that a lot of ways is sometimes people are bringing things out that are the wrong timing or the wrong message. Not that it, not that it's a bad idea. Just you need to get it at the right time and place. Otherwise it's the wrong thing to serve.
Jeff:
Yeah. Like a launching in gym right now is probably, it's not a bad idea to have a gym, but it's probably the wrong time to launch. Yeah. I would like to end, so we'll end the recording with a little plug, right? So for, for Rosenberg, Tesla you can get more information about us, our it RC mighty pa.com COVID slash 19 updates. We've got, this is our COVID resource page, which I'm updating on a regular basis. You can also subscribe to our newsletter where we keep people informed on, on finance accounting, and at the moment, lots of COVID related issues because that's keeping us up at night. At some point we'll talk about other things like where you can find cats out of create an investible business, you know, some of those things, but at the moment back to Scott's comment on, on timing, we're really focusing on coach.
Jeff:
The, the other thing that I offer, I do offer professional help. I help walk people through this. My, my normal, you know, business right there, like could charge me out at four 60 an hour. But I've managed to negotiate with my boss a little bit better term tier. So I can do $1,500 for six sessions to really walk people through creating their plan, to finding that impact that they want to have to finding their, their plan, defining their principles, and then creating something so that they can do it. My experience successions pretty much covers it as long as the person is engaged and they want to deliver, because I can guide you what to do in six sessions. But if you don't actually take any, any action, then you might as well keep your money in your pocket and don't bother, right. Because it's all about action. Right. If you don't do it, you're not going to get the results. That's all there is to it. All right guys. So that's, that's all I've got.
Jonathan:
Oh, that's right.
Jeff:
Great.
Jonathan:
Alright. Awesome. Well, Jeff, thanks a bunch. That was, that was, that was great. That was just very enjoyable. Lots of information, easily digestible. Like we said before, which I think is important, especially when you're tackling stuff like this. People need it in a digestible fashion. Otherwise it just becomes just too much. But thanks again. And thanks everyone for joining us. I'm going to stop the recording now and until next time.