#018 - Leading in Crisis Series: Decide

Robert Greiner 0:05

Alright, so we are back on the crisis leadership train. And we covered our minimally viable crisis leadership model, which is for those that need a refresher, decide, communicate, forgive, learn. And so this is like an individual's focus on what you can do as a leader, as an individual in any kind of crisis to help, let's say, increase your chances of success through it. And this is very much the things that are in your control. There's lots of work out there already on organizational crisis management, organizational change, management, those kind of things. This is really, when emotions are high, when you're very clearly in a space, that's not normal. What are things you can do? What's a framework you can lean on right away, and follow that, which is really helpful to have a protocol when things go wrong part of that, too, is, I think we mentioned this last time crises happen more often than we realize, right. So we have these once in 100 year events, these black swan events, but those happen around every 10 years, right, because a once in 100 year, Global Health event happened 10 to 11 years after a once in 100 year global financial event. And there's all these sort of sub events, multi region events, though political, environmental, health related all of those things. And so these macro events happen really frequently. And then you can even bring it down to maybe the company you're working for is going out of business, even in a good time. Maybe you didn't get the promotion you were angling for and are rethinking your career. Maybe your boss comes to you and asks you to do something unethical, and you have to make a hard decision. So this can happen at the micro or macro level. But we all pretty much have been there now where you wake up day after day, and things are generally fine. And then you wake up and the world has changed. And for me it was that Friday, I think it was in March, where everybody freaked out and went to the grocery store and kind of hunkered down. And we all knew what's coming, it's coming, the pandemic is coming. And then all of a sudden, like everyone hits the grocery store. And that's when we all like the domino tipped, and we all lost it. And we were at that point full into crisis mode. And so what do we do as individuals? And so today, I figured we'd would double click on the first part of the framework, which is decide and one of the one of the things maybe you and I could just discuss live? Is it decide is it act? Or is it commit? Or is there a better word that encapsulates what we mean, when we say, intentionally choose to be part of the solution, you're running into the burning building, you're moving forward, you're not just going on defense and riding out the storm? And we said before, there's nothing wrong with going on defense and writing out the storm. Just be explicit about what you're doing. And so maybe we'll start there did one Did I miss anything on the intro, because it's been a while since we talked about it, and then to what should we call this sort of first piece of the four part minimally viable crisis leadership model framework,

Tiffany Lenz 3:02

I really did the use of the word decide, because it expresses a, almost like a go No, go the word commit, we use that a lot in different contexts, commit and deliver more in like the project management space, show your commitment. So I think it's a word that doesn't quite grab my attention as much. Act is also a good word. But each one of these four requires action. So it's not distinct, where decide for me is what it is that tollgate of go, no go like I'm making.Remaining in a steady state is not an option, I have to make a decision to do something. And even if I make a decision to withdraw, and withdrawing and making, it's my deciding point. So I do like the word decide.

Robert Greiner 3:20

I think so too. I really like the way you put it, I keep going back to even like movies or stories, which I know are fiction, they represent truth of experience and things like that. And there's always that sort of scene where they're about to go into the building, or they're about to cross the river or they're about to, you know, embark and it's like, hey, once we move forward, but there's no turning back, you're committed at that point, and to be conflicted about your role or your decision, once you've passed that event horizon is not helpful, because that is really where bad things can start to happen, because you really have to be committed at that point. So I do decide it is it does have that sort of point of no return. Go, no go idea. So I think that's it then is that our decision, are we calling it deciding

Tiffany Lenz 4:42

That is our decision.

Robert Greiner 4:43

Okay. Okay, it's official. Now, I've already updated the mind map. So there we go. So it's decide. And let's double click on that a little bit. Right. We said the intentional decision is what matters. You can choose to hunker down there's plenty people like within COVID right. The this whole year long, year plus long pandemic, people that had to opt to, I'm going to focus on my family right now, I'm gonna focus on my health right now. And they could not, or were not in a position to, like really lean in and be part of the solution. But they also weren't part of the problem, because it's like, Hey, I'm focused over here. The issue is we've said, If you pretend like you're part of the problem, if you're delusional and think you're part of the problem, or solution, and then all of a sudden, you're not engaging in the behaviors and activities needed to move things forward. That's where some dysfunction can creep in.

Tiffany Lenz 5:35

Agreed, I've been reading a little bit about this concept called task conflict versus relational conflict. It's in this book called Think Again. I might have mentioned it to you before, but there's something here that feels like a next step to me of once one decides, then there is action that comes from that, that is that's related to the environment that you start to create around you this brave, this kind of brave space. And the residual conflict that will come from it has to be related to the task, it has to be related to moving obstacles out of the way. And not saying I'm rejecting conflict, but embracing conflict, but doing it in a healthy way. That isn't the ropes a relational conflict would be insulting someone, as a person, when you get angry versus welcome task conflict would be let's look at the the activities, the things that have to be done. And let's reject this concept of agree to disagree, let's continue to peel them apart until we come to a solution on each one and keep moving forward. That's there's like a concept there that we don't often delineate. So if you're talking about being part of a solution for a pandemic, or you're talking about even just like pulling up with your family and having to live with a group of people that you don't spend 24 hours a day with seven days a week for the next year and a half, either one of those, the results of that decision point will lead you to a next set of behaviors and a next set of actions that will involve conflict. So I would say the next step in this process is being prepared for that in a healthy way,

Robert Greiner 7:18

You've uncovered something, I think, really compelling. There's never a better time to focus on attacking the problem, and the task side of what you're talking about, then in a crisis, and when things go wrong, people can make the situation infinitely better or infinitely worse. And it's usually across those two extremes, right? Usually, when someone gets involved, you're not usually like, Oh, hey, this person just had an average neutral effect on the situation, it's always good thing, Tiffany was around to bail us out of this issue, or we all would be in such a bad place, or I can't believe Robert showed up and just made matters worse. And the ability for us to just use our own dysfunction and pride and ego to make a bad situation terrible is almost unparalleled. But there's no other force like it in the universe. And so that idea of focusing on the task kind of removes, it allows you to place an intentional focus on something that moves things forward and is not going to make you part of their relational problem that creates a bit of a death spiral.

Tiffany Lenz 8:23

It also though demands that we reject something that as a society we've, comfortably adopted, which is this concept of, we're just gonna agree to disagree on that we'll have some discussion around these tasks around these actions around this conflicting concept. And then we'll come to a point where we can't get any further and we will agree to disagree.

Robert Greiner 8:45

So

you and I are, let's put a scenario on this. You and I are running company x. And we have an organization with 100 people in it. And it we have to make the decision. So this is 12 months ago to say, Hey, everyone can work from home. And of course, we're not prepared. So we'd actually don't know if this will work or not. And do we say when you and I are trying to discuss the merits of do we pull the trigger on this say, everyone work from home until further notice, we need to get a handle on the situation. It's not safe to come in. And you say, Hey, we should have everyone work from home. There's too many unknowns. And I say no, forget that there's nothing wrong, what's everyone needs to be at work, we need to band together in person to fight this thing. And we go back and forth. And then at some point, you know what, let's just agree to disagree. That doesn't work in a crisis. There's no, there's a decision that needs to be made. There's people relying on us in this fictional scenario, to make the decision. Like those are really high stakes. That's a really high stakes example, contrived example that that makes sense to me. I have a feeling though. You mean, in the day to day though, as we're navigating life in a crisis, there's still a million mundane things that need to happen as As leaders, you're saying that agree to disagree ideas, even on the simplest, most mundane problem that we'd rather just not think about right now and move on to the next buyer is poison. Is that what you're getting?

Tiffany Lenz: 10:13

No, I

don't think I'm being quite that dogmatic. I think there are areas of Oh, say religious opinion, for example, or sometimes political context, where we can we share and just agree to disagree. We can talk until we're blue in the face about a presidential election process or how good a candidate isn't at some point there is there's a, there's data and there's also opinion, and that's that, but for something that will cause a complete slowdown, and then this is you and I talking, I would say that probably this example we're talking through, if we were running the United States, we might need to rethink, this is not a place to just agree to disagree. We're talking about to average citizens having a discussion, right? The examples we're using, though, I would not say every mundane task deserves this level of scrutiny, I think it's a priority level, I think it's a it's related to heavy items with heavy consequence, that we actually do need to stay in a room and talk this through and keep tearing apart its various components, until we find the place until we craft a different solution that works for both of us people leading this firm, you could use a smaller example to since we both run lots of projects before and say like, how many times on a project team, when you're having a massive issue in a release with a big defect, can you just pull the team together? And then at some point, say we're going to agree to disagree? No, never, you actually have to stay in the room and keep working through various technical solutions until you come up with something that moves you forward in some way. Or something that gives your client something they can they can weigh and choose from some various options. So it's not it's not completely all or nothing. But I sometimes think we've started to adapt this agree to disagree approach in areas where it doesn't make sense.

Robert Greiner: 12:15

Okay, so let me back off of my overly dramatic summary and say maybe the what we're advocating for here is in a crisis, when the stakes are higher, as a leader, you have to be more sensitive about just folding into the agree to disagree idea. And there are situations where maybe in good times, it's maybe not optimal, but it's okay. When you're in a crisis. It's on you to to selectively based on your experience based on the facts you have at hand based on the situation all of those things to hold your ground and say no, this is something we really need to sort out because we're not going to have the luxury of being able to wait for more information to come in later, be able to wait for that next round of funding or whatever it is. And so you can you have to say, hey, because we're in this situation, we really need to sit here and work through this.

Tiffany Lenz: 13:08

Yeah, Yeah, I do. I think there's a criticality vector there that just has to be considered in way in which things have to be thought through, I can think of other micro examples as well of if you're a team lead, and you're running a pretty standard retrospective, and to two people disagree on something that you can feel the tension in the room is palpable enough that it is going to erode their ability to work together, the tension between them the lack of communication if they leave the room with this thing unresolved. And it's just captured in retrospective notes, as Bob had one opinion, and Joe had another and they both had some data. One said that works well. And once it didn't, if it's minor enough that you're using your people skills, and you can sense it's like not a big deal fine. If you can sense that it's actually gonna cause a rupture somewhere else, I would say it can't be considered an item to agree to disagree.

Robert Greiner: 14:07

Okay, great. So lean in when the stakes are higher, and help drive towards attacking that problem. That's one thing. We've also talked about activity is important here. Action is important here, you have to decide a path forward even in the absence of all the data you wish you had. Some people are more comfortable with this than others but time kills in a crisis. And so you should probably be moving at a pace slightly faster than you're comfortable with. So once you've decided to be part of the problem, that pace that activity is definitely

important.

Tiffany Lenz: 14:40

Something comes to mind in that list of things you just went over. That sounds very entrepreneurial to me. It's very sounds very much like a real entrepreneurs life. There's there's an urgency, a critical maybe personal problem that needs to be he solved a speed. And it's a speed that's moving even faster than one is comfortable with, but also a need to keep moving. Just to thought about the potential parallels between a real entrepreneur not just someone who starts a business, but someone who's truly entrepreneurial, like they're paving a path that hasn't been paved before. And the same characteristic it takes to be that to do this, first bullet of decide, I'm going to I'm going to decide and I'm going to take then requisite action.

Robert Greiner: 15:33

Yeah, and you are faced more often, more frequently, more viscerally that the runway, right, eventually I'm going to be out of money, I'm going to be out of funding, like this thing is going to shut down if we don't make these dates. And so anything that comes in and threatens that, usually aggressive plan to begin with is almost by nature, by definition, a crisis.

Tiffany Lenz: 15:54

Yeah, it almost feels an entrepreneur is running in crisis mode all the time. That's probably part of the reason why it's not for everyone. And again, I am very clearly differentiating between someone who starts a business, that we're in a space where other businesses exist, and it's a little different, maybe a little different. But then then someone who's really paving a brave new path. In my my current favorite book is Innovation Staffed by Jim McCully. So drawing from some of the things I've read recently there, and him describing his own journey of entrepreneurship and how fraught with, like, trauma, it is not unlike trying to be a leader in a time of crisis.

Robert Greiner: 16:33

Yeah, that makes total sense that I was just thinking about. So Ben Horowitz, who is venture capitalist, right? Has this quote around a in a startup, there's no room for a content free executive, there's no value there, where you just, I'm just a leader, like I'm gonna lead people, you have to have a perspective, you have to have an understanding of the customer base of the industry of the organization, like you have to know things and have a perspective on how the future is going to shake out and then place bets or take actions that support that perspective. And maybe it'll be right, maybe you won't, but you have to be in that zone. And I wonder here, if that's part of the case, too, like you have to have a perspective on we did internally, we said, Hey, based on historical information, pandemic global pandemics last 18 months plus or minus six, and regardless of technology advances, we think it's going to be the same thing. And given what we know, now, we're going to play this hyper conservative approach so that we can survive, essentially, no matter what happens, and that the trade off we're making is if we rebound quickly, we're going to be caught a little flat footed in the recovery. But we're not going to go out of business. And so that's, that's a perspective that was important in a crisis. And the funny thing about that is, even though you could look back and say that was with perfect hindsight, that was right or wrong. In the moment, it was the correct decision, because it was an intentional focus decision that was lived out over time, and did not adjust it on a knee jerk. But only after, it was very clear that hey, things are rejecting towards normal. And so I'll just wonder if there's like this, you have to have more of a perspective of an opinion, and move forward with it and advocate for it as a leader, especially in times of crisis,

Tiffany Lenz: 18:25

I was struck by the fact that the idea of being of making a decision to be conservative, and saying that history history tells us x, let's say fixated on 18 months plus or minus six was actually incredibly correct. There wasn't a willingness, there was a willingness to look at new data, but only from a completely holistic perspective, not just pieces of data here and there that would support or refute a decision. There was a thoughtful, systematic reflection, but we're clear, we're well past the 12 month mark, and our firm has stuck with the decision. And we're closer to the 18 month mark, and just amazed by that alone. And I paused on thinking through the framework because I was amazed at how accurate

that position was.

Robert Greiner: 19:22

You would think that technology would have that time or not, but it really didn't. I really don't

Tiffany Lenz: 19:27

No because technology can't technology can't change the way people operate within

Robert Greiner: 19:34

It really just magnifies

Tiffany Lenz: 19:35

You can't force humans to do

Robert Greiner: 19:37

It magnifies what we already are.

Tiffany Lenz: 19:38

What's the quote around like not 90% of 90% of management or 90% of issues are people manage

100%

people issues? Technology is only an enabler or a detractor it's not a it's not that it's not a definer having using technology to roll out vaccines did not make people go get them. Even going door to door wouldn't make people get them, even if robots brought them door to door wouldn't make people who don't want to get vaccinated get them. So it's a,

I know, I'm using a very silly kind of facetious example at this point. But there is there's something that's in this example that's a bit more predictable about humans,

Robert Greiner: 20:24

yeah,

Tiffany Lenz: 20:24

and the way they operate when they're afraid and unsure and lacking information.

Robert Greiner: 20:31

And my opinion is to, we got really lucky that, at some point, three to four months into the pandemic, the markets, and I'm using that term super broadly, basically said, Hey, we don't care that this is going on, and what it's going to do to global GDP, and our ability to fully recover, and get people back to work. And all those things were good, like governments are going to print money, we're going to sit and that Carnival Cruise Line, for instance, who has all this debt, and is not getting any revenue to service the debt and can't put people on their boats, there's going to be a pent up demand, and we're just going to, we're just going to ride their stock higher than it was before the pandemic started. We're really fortunate, I think, as a global human species, that that happened. Otherwise, if we could have easily got into probably not a depression, but a pretty severe recession type mentality, and it would have felt like 2008 all over again. Now we could bicker about whether or not that was we're just kicking the can and all those things. But if we're talking about, hey, let's not have a financial crisis, at the same time that we have a global health crisis, we're really lucky organizations are really lucky that the market rebounded the way it did, or they would have been cash starved. And we I think we would have seen a lot more impact an issue. And so if you're making decisions on our decision is to be conservative and survive. Even though things rebounded quicker than we thought you can look back and one appreciate the intentionality of the decision, and not just closing your eyes and hoping things work. And two even though we're caught a little flat footed on the recovery, it's better than the alternative, which is going out of business. So I think the risk companies took on much more risks than maybe they realized, I think, is what I'm saying there.

Tiffany Lenz: 22:19

I think that's true. I do think that we're still living in a bit of a haze, or like an unfocused space of what the actual economic outcomes will be, yes, still a massive unemployment crisis. And that costs if it doesn't cost something right now, it costs something in the future from the perspective of giving giving out massive loans that then don't have to be paid back, which Absolutely, I agree with, I think that's exactly what the government should have done. But that money did come from somewhere. So it will, it will cost Yes. In some other reduced spend. It will cost later in increased taxes, it will cost later in. We know a lot of the softer costs of unemployment that relate to homelessness and lack of education, and then a generation left behind it. We don't know what the cost of this is yet.

Robert Greiner: 23:17

Yeah, and if you think about the analogy of us as a global population to an individual who experience some kind of trauma, like a car accident, maybe we're not on the side of the road, bleeding anymore. Maybe we've been pulled into the hospital, we've been triage, the near the life threatening illnesses and injuries have all been patched up. We had our surgery, it went well enough. And now we're in like rehab. And what do your point that's an unknowable thing. But again, you it would be irrational to say, hey, everything's gonna be fine. There's some long term consequences of this that could involve to your point, two generations down, don't have we don't have enough people graduating college, whatever it is, there's some kind of future issues that are going to manifest as a result of these decisions that were made right or wrong. And to not have a perspective or opinion about that as a leader and work that into your crisis response, even though it's later in the response is not a great thing.

Tiffany Lenz: 24:24

No,

responsible for the lives of: 1000

Robert Greiner: 26:05

Yeah.

So let's back up to the beginning. So we've traversed decide all the way. This is a looping thing. This is an ongoing thing. We talked about the end of the crisis and how like, what is rehab look like and those kind of things after a surgery, that you have to keep working on the It doesn't just get better right after surgery. So we've decided we wanted to be part of the solution, you got to make decisions quickly, you need to move quickly. You need a perspective and opinion about what's going to happen, what the future holds. And just place your bets. Be willing to adapt. But there's a difference between thoughtful adaptation and knee jerk. And that's a delicate balance that is hard to achieve over time, we talked about the initial and ongoing decision point. And then one last thing on this is really the ooda loop. John Boyd, so was a US Air Force Colonel, and revolutionize combat flight, by having pilots go through this four step process in a high stakes combat situation. So we're not at war. There's some human nature analog type things here that apply, the stakes are high, what do you do? So it's observe, orient, decide, act. And for me like that, I personally don't orient very well, I just observe, decide, act, observe, decide act like over and over again. So the orientation for me I know needs some intentionality as a practical. Next step, take a minute, look around, see what's happening, make a decision around what to do next and go. And then the point here is that is you have to keep that up as a loop. So when you make your decision, take a minute to figure out what impact it's having look a little bit deeper, change, direction, change, focus, if needed, make your next decision act. And if you keep that in your mind, observe orient decide act, I think you'll be in a much better place. And it really it's hard to explain, but it works really well. So I think we've talked about this already, if you look around your room right now, and you say, hey, I want to make this room like super clean, and you just say that to yourself, stuffs gonna pop out to you that you need to pick up pillow is askew over here, magazine magazines are out of order. Over here, there's a takeout container over there. And you just gonna start noticing stuff. And you can just work on stuff that you notice. And over time, you're going to you're going to be more in tune with your ability to identify things that need addressing, and to push on it. And so it's really can be just a matter of asking yourself, and you're going to get it 80% it might not be that the single most optimal thing for you to do, but it's going to be top five. And that's probably good.

Tiffany Lenz: 28:49

I like that. I like that. And I'm when you were describing all the things that need to be cleaned up. I wonder if how much you could see if my background, no, no takeout container, just an example. But you did mention something that I don't think should be overlooked is the the Orient piece is really important. You're probably downplaying your natural, your natural psychological ability to do that quite quickly. Because what the Orient piece is all is the context. It's the context in which one is observing and making a decision and then acting. I think we're drawing a little diagram of that. Yeah. sensemaking there's something there that these other three things would pivot around orient from context is critical in terms of how whether one is making a decision about a project that's on fire, or a family crisis, or a global pandemic?

Robert Greiner: 29:43

Yeah, and there's all these things happening around you. So you're observing all the time. There is a conscious step there as well though, which is Hey, what's the dynamic here? What's going on? And then what what direction are you going to take and or what are the two or three options you have and and then move towards that. Yeah, that makes sense.

Tiffany Lenz: 30:00

I like is a nice precursor to the framework that that you've introduced that we're talking about as well because decide is in there. So even before one gets to the point of our, the beginning of our discussion decide, one does have to observe and orient and decide and then act. So there's, there's like a macro version of this for me. And then it's my it's a it's a it's applicable at them at the micro level as well.

Robert Greiner: 30:28

Yeah.

Yeah, definitely. All right. Can you want to add to double click on decide which we've decided is

Tiffany Lenz: 30:35

This was really good. Very interesting.

Robert Greiner: 30:36

Yeah, we always go

Tiffany Lenz: 30:38

We decided then we act.

Robert Greiner: 30:39

Right.

framework in action. Yes. We always go in directions. I don't expect I'm glad we captured this. Yes. All right. I'll see you next week for which one is next. Communicate. That's a good one. easy one to get wrong.

Tiffany Lenz: 30:55

All the time. Thanks.

Robert Greiner: 30:55

Alright, have a good one. Thanks.