Article originally published at Forbes on May 20, 2020.
How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.
While the origins of this mantra may be in dispute, its applicability during crises like this pandemic is not. As business leaders, we all are facing an elephantine problem. And as the saying goes, the only way to get through it is one bite at a time.
For simplicity, I have chosen to divide the metaphorical elephant into three parts. You may think of them as three pieces or approaches. Or you may also think of these as three phases in time. Either way, I’ve found that they are best sequenced in the order below; but they are not mutually exclusive, and each phase can overlap with the others.
Purpose
Hopefully, you have had a well-defined purpose for yourself and your business. If so, it has probably guided you well thus far. There is no reason to doubt your purpose now. If your purpose was defined and defined well, it is going to serve you during hard times more than ever.
As an example, our company’s purpose has been to help “small to mid-sized companies solve their growth problems.” Do you think our purpose has changed now? Absolutely not. In fact, we are even more committed to living out our purpose and serving our clients.
Starbucks’ purpose is encapsulated in its mission statement: “to inspire and nurture the human spirit — one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time.” During the novel coronavirus crisis, one can very easily see their purpose manifest itself even more visibly as they offer free coffee to first responders, take care of their employees by maintaining their pay, and continue to serve customers through their drive-thru stations.
A good place to start is to look hard at your own purpose — both personally and in business. If it isn’t a gratuitous copycat statement wordsmithed out of envy, I am sure it will help you guide your company through tough environments like 2020’s. And if you believe it doesn’t do justice to who you really are, this may be the perfect time to revise it.
For example, if your purpose has been to “make an engineer’s design tasks easier,” I am sure the same set of design engineers are even keener to benefit from however you were making their jobs easier. No, they may not be ready to press the “buy button” immediately, but make no mistake: They are looking for help. And if you deliver it, you will win them over with greater fervor than you may have experienced earlier. People will notice if you’re being purposeful.
Repurpose
On a more practical level, if your business has been adversely impacted by a crisis (as most businesses have been by the novel coronavirus), it may be the time to see if you can, or need to, repurpose your assets, skills, services and products.
Let me illustrate with some recent examples. Conference centers and sporting arenas have been repurposed as hospitals. Whiskey makers have repurposed their distilleries to make sanitizers. General Motors is making ventilators. Ask yourself if your manufacturing assets or the skills of your workforce can be repurposed to make something that is in greater demand during a crisis.
This may be a short-term solution to get over the slump, or it may turn out to be a long-term diversification play for your company. Let your purpose guide you and let time tell you which it is.
Re-Imagine
Of the three phases, this is perhaps the one that will have the most impact on you and your business — in both significance and duration. Therefore, getting this right is paramount.
That said, it may also seem the most out of place. You might wonder if you can really take the time in the midst of a crisis like a pandemic to do this futuristic re-imagining.
Let me posit that as a steward of your business, you cannot afford not to do it.
Of course, you should first make sure that the basics of business survival have been taken care of. Once all the fires have been put out, crises are the perfect time to re-imagine what the world will look like, and how you and your business will (or should) play in a new world. In fact, this may be a good, productive way to use your executive team’s time and mental space while they are quarantined and likely itching to get back in the saddle. As a metaphor, great hunters and fishermen use a stormy day to sharpen their spears and mend their nets so they can be far more effective when the storm clears.
Watch for my next article in which I will lay out specific steps for reimagining and retooling your business for the post-pandemic world.