A realistic process to grow in crises.

We can grow from crises or get stuck. You have heard it being said that – We are all in the same storm, facing it in different boats and often find ourselves in different parts of the storm. Some are in the eye of the storm while others are in the outer ring. Families, companies, teams and communities are all experiencing the storm from different boats and different angles. In the many (online) meetings we have with customers, they often ask us: “Is there any process which can help us to get a realistic picture of the situation?” So, we use now a process which can help to see where we are as a person, company, city or nation in this global crisis and to grow from it rather than become fearful. There is hope. Let’s go through the four phases together.

1Surviving  (swimming in deep water)

As the crisis hits you, you tend to go into the survival mode. The adrenaline kicks in and you go into: fight, flight or freeze. But this first phase is also a time of mourning. Because several things/opportunities die. The old world stops suddenly and unexpectedly. And nobody has any clue what will happen next, how long this crisis will go, and what the impact will be.

To do this surviving–phase well, it would be great if your resilience has been build up strongly, before the crisis! That can only be a lesson for the future.

Now, you and your organization, can only do much to build up a healthy “survival- rhythm”, to handle this first phase of the crisis well.

Some ideas:

  • Build a new daily rhythm, of enough sleep, healthy food, enough sport and regular small breaks for rest and reflection.
  • Reorganize your work and adapt to the new reality, in a way that you still experience that you are able to produce (even small) results every day.
  • Communicate more than usual, with your colleagues, family and friends

2. Coping  (you reach your life boat)

When the first shock of the crisis is over, you need to come in the coping-phase. Staying in flight, fight or freeze is not healthy. You need to start engaging the reality in a hopeful manner. How can you and your team adapt your products and services to the new emerging needs of your customers and people around you. How can you grow in AQ: adaptability quotient.

But also now is the time to go into your personal training mode to strengthen your resilience.

Some ideas:

How can you use the unique strengths of your products and services and translate them into new challenging market society.

  • How can you use the unique strengths of your products and services and translate them into the new challenging market and society?
  • As a consulting, coaching and training company, we had to re-design to fulfill the new needs of our customers.
  • Now is also the time to develop new ideas and new products, in the first phase of Design Thinking: empathic brainstorming with colleagues and costumers.

3. Restoring (Re-building your ship)

In surviving, you just swim to survive. In coping you found and built a small boat to continue your journey. In restoring you built a strong, renewed and powerful boat to make a new journey into this new world. One can come into the restoring phase with the expectation that all is back to the old normal, only to find that the old normal is not the same anymore. This expectation can bring disappointment and hold you back to building intentionally in the restoring phase so you are ready for the next phase.

Your focus in the restoring phase is to re-organize your systems, your service to your costumers, and create re-newed products. You keep on learning and training yourself and your whole team. Finances recover and as a whole organization you feel that you have “grip” again, and you can take up the “20 mile march” (idea from Jim Collins, in Great by Choice) again.

Some ideas:

  • Build resilience into the system of your organization. Build more effective structures, meetings and production lines.
  • This is the time to re-design your mission, vision and values (DNA) to be well positioned for the next phase.
  • Build your culture through focusing on “Paradise – Home – Team” in an intentional way.

Between the Restoring and Transforming phase you will be confronted with the question: Was it just about surviving the crises or are we truly going to focus on real transformation?

4. Transformation  (choosing to discover the ocean)

From swimming to survive (survival), to finding a little boat (coping), to building a strong boat (restoring), now you need to decide: which part of the ocean will I discover? Because the world will not turn back to (the old) normal. It will turn into a new world with new needs, new designs, new hopes, new fears, new challenges.

As mentioned, if you just restore yourself, your family, your team or your organization into a healthy (but old) form, that will not help you to “take the land” that stands before you. The Hebrew people who left Egypt with their old DNA of slavery, had to be transformed into a new nation of healthy, spiritual, self-responsible and courageous man and woman.

Some ideas:

  • Start to dream about your “new land”. How do you want to bring dignity and destiny to your customers and the society where you are part of?
  • Team-up with other “strategic thinkers” because now is the time for design-thinking into the near future.
  • Ask together: What will be the questions, the needs, the challenges and the opportunities of the new world?

Here are some questions you can ask yourself:

  1. Where are you personally in these 4 phases?
  2. Where are you as a team in these phases? And what do you need now?
  3. How can you as a leader prepare the next phase?
  4. Where are your customers in these 4 phases?
  5. How can your support them to live and grow in their own journey?

Do you want help by rebuilding resilience into the system of your organization? Or build more effective structures, meetings or production lines? Please let us help you and contact us or go to: www.xpand.eu/sa

Join our Anti-Fragility Leadership 2-part series starting 27 October or 13 November.

Get your copy of the new e-book “Sailing into unknown waters”!

Sincere greetings,

Xpand South Africa Team

Empowering individuals and organizations to forge a path in the crises!