How we show up as leaders: Founder reflections at the start of the pandemic
In March of 2020, during the start of the pandemic, we hosted a virtual meetup of eleven founder/CEOs to discuss how they were doing. It was a critical time to hold space and allow them to share their sudden challenges and new entrepreneurial realities.
We learned so much that we summarized our conversation into this set of bullet points.
[UPDATE, February 2023: Since publishing this article in 2020, we continued these CEO/founder conversations and they evolved into a weekly virtual space called DFA Communities. It’s a free open forum where founders gather to share relevant needs and frustrations. If you’re interested in being invited to join, send us an email.]
Ideas & Advice from one founder to another during the start of the pandemic
Track what we can control, and what we can’t—and how we move through these shifting sands.
Tell our staff and partners how we are managing the knowns, and how we are being positioned to react to the unknowns.
Update people frequently, even with ‘no updates today’ - this is the time to over communicate.
People are looking for leadership and stability during a crisis.
Show our humanity - let the kids stop by and wave on your video calls, etc.
It’s OK to take a 10-day pause on major and strategic goals. Stay the course, it’s ok to turn off the normal entrepreneurial explode the world pace and keep going as normal, for now.
Take your time to breathe and think through your shot.
When you have short targets right in front of you, you have to shoot faster, you don’t have to get them exactly dead on, you can have a bad shot and they’ll still go down. It’s more about quick reaction speed, what do I need to take down? Even a sloppy shot is better than no shot at all. Look at the close targets and shoot quick.
Make the internal decision to push yourself to action. Reevaluating your decision-making process.
Assume that what was true on Saturday morning is not true today. It might be, but verify first.
“If this was just my company right now, I’d be despondent. But it’s not—we’re all in this together.”
“If you have to do a difficult thing, you can choose to do it as nicely as possible.”
Be honest with people who may be losing their jobs. Also be honest with people about the stability of the company (even if it is obvious that you are stable)
Supply chain disruption is more manageable than it first appeared. Buy more bulk, and consider faster transport (i.e. air vs ship).
Be aware that clients and demand may not have changed, customers and vendors might have gone dark just in the transition. Latent demand is a real thing for many sectors.
Just because there is a new normal doesn’t mean that we can not think in terms of succeeding and abundance.
This is possibly the highest opportunity for learning or being creative that has occurred in our life times.
Re-focus on what’s essential in your whole life, not just your business
As goes the leader, so goes the business
This is an opportunity to work on systems and to cut out that which does not matter. A tightening of the belt can be a force function in creating efficiency.
Even if your company isn’t having problems, yet, it is fantastic to know a community is here for when/if I/we need it.
Tactics that are helping entrepreneurs during the pandemic:
Daily scheduled calls - stay consistent. Create regularity, build out expectations with everyone on the team.
In the general market, anyone who is part-time is cut. Better to put people on unemployment now rather than before it’s backed up in a few weeks. Might be the most compassionate thing to do.
We can still be confident, cool, and kind.
Offer your clients payment plans and options.
Get away from the news for some portion of the day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0EpwT9fg1I