Leading through tough times
Pretty much everything in life is easy when things go well. When life is in balance it is easy to follow the gym routine. When work goes smoothly it is easy to meditate on spare time. But when something is off and you don’t sleep well, it is harder to follow the gym routine.
In business also, sales and leading sales is easier when markets are in your favour and things follow an upwards trend.
This is when there is more time to sit down with the team to do idea sessions, have fun team activities to boost morale and put together sales competitions with big prizes. Even the reporting sessions are forums to celebrate wins and vision with people smiling.
However hardly any business is always on an upward trend. Sooner or later your business falls into tougher times and that is when skills are put to test. When you need to sell. And when you need to lead. It is the tough times that test you. You will come out stronger. Or not.
When leading tough times (note: Strong Sales POV) you need to understand and focus on energy. Not numbers, not performance. Energy. Because energy will provide you the numbers and performance but without energy your chances to make the tough period are smaller.
Agree, might sound like a given soft speech but It is very natural for all of us to get stressed when times are tougher. And if a leader gets stressed it is very likely that they will inject and portray that stress back to the organisation.
All of a sudden all the team activities, the high morale boosting speeches and even the smallest after work gatherings are gone. Instead the organisation is full of stone faced serious facial expressions, focusing on the numbers, fearing the future.
Injecting pressure and stress into the organisation are actions that take away energy. You need to do those actions with careful precision. Because if you take too much energy out, inject too much stress and pressure to people, the performance that you intend to increase actually goes down.
Some basic symptoms are:
People work more from home (isolating)
Messaging platforms goes silent
Meetings are silent
Sick leaves are on the rise
Now to tackle this bad circle from happening we need to understand that when times are tough:
We as leaders need to increase energy to the organisation and people
They are already having harder time to succeed. We need to make sure they have more energy to run harder, perform more, succeed more. We need to be present and close to people and show by example how the tough times are won. As a leader instead of portraying a scary future, focus on communicating the vision of the brighter tomorrow.
Coming back to practical things to do when business is not where you need it to be:
Be more present with people. Talk, listen, encourage.
Celebrate even the smallest of wins!
Arrange time for team activities. Arrange possibility for peer to peer support and help people to keep close to each others.
Exemplify and Embody belief to better times. People look up for you. If you are stressed it signals you don’t believe fully to better times. If you smile and have a positive expression it creates trust.
De-stress. Make sure your people have fun at work. Take away too much pressure. It is okay to laugh and smile in work even if business is hard.
Signal trust and accountability. Let your team know that you trust and believe they can do what is needed. People who feel trusted and are given responsibility in a positive way will naturally boost their performance.
In short when business is not where it should be, do not fall into the trap of increasing pressure and stress to the organisation. This is not the time to skip on the team activities or when you need people to feel stressed.
Instead make sure people feel energised and armed with the belief that they will make it. That will empower increased performance better than fear.