The New Leader’s 100-Day Action Plan [i] lays out a methodology for leaders and their teams to get done in 100-days what normally takes six to twelve months. In a crisis, this time frame is woefully inadequate as leaders and their teams need a way to get done in 100-hours what normally takes weeks or months. That way follows.
Start with the basic premise that leadership is about inspiring and enabling others. Enhance that with Wharton professor Leonard Lodish’s thinking that “It is better to be vaguely right than precisely wrong”[ii]. Then add Darwin’s point that “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”[iii] Add it all up and you get leading through a crisis being about inspiring and enabling others to get things vaguely right quickly, and then adapt along the way – with clarity around direction, leadership and roles.
This plays out in three steps of a disciplined iteration in line with the overall purpose.:
- PREPARE IN ADVANCE: The better you have anticipated possible scenarios, the more prepared you are, the more confidence you will have when crises strike.
- REACT TO EVENTS: The reason you prepared is so that you all can react quickly and flexibility to the situation you face. Don’t over-think this. Do what you prepared to do.
- BRIDGE THE GAPS. In a crisis, there is inevitably a gap between the desired and current state of affairs. Rectify that by bridging those gaps in the:
- Situation – implementing a response to the current crisis
- Response – improving capabilities to respond to future crises
- Prevention – reducing the risk of future crises happening in the first place
This is further fleshed out in a white paper you can get by sending me an email and asking. Hope it helps.
[i] The New Leader’s 100-Day Action Plan, Bradt, Check, Pedraza, Wiley, 2009
[ii] From lecture at the University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School, 1984
[iii] Attributed to Charles Darwin