Name: Ruder Finn CEO's advice for leaders during the coronavirus pandemic
Uploaded: 2020-03-31
Duration: 6 min 26 s
Description: Kathy Bloomgarden says it's crucial to be decisive and transparent.

[ MUSIC ] Hi Cathy, thank you so much for joining me for this virtual interview to talk about crisis leadership. Let me begin our conversation by saying that, many people say that the ultimate test of leadership comes during a crisis. And you are now advising Many of your clients who are CEO's of Fortune 500 companies on how best to lead in this Coronavirus Pandemic. So, what is the most important thing you're telling them that they should do? The most important thing is that we have two fights here. We have the fight to really improve people's heath and we have the fight to deal with the fear factor. And they're both equally important. And communication is essential for both, to address both of those imperatives. And when you're communicating of that information, you said it's important to be transparent. How much, how transparent should these business leaders be? Well, the first point is, communication is really tough to fit in when you have a really difficult challenge like this. You've got to deal with so many issues in terms of closing factories, asking people to stay at home, supply chain disruptions, cash flow and revenue falls. So we ask people to really step up their communications we know how difficult that is. The second problem and challenge is being transparent. And the first step is always the hardest. So to have to tell people that one of their colleagues has fallen ill with Covid is very scary thing to go through. And you know that people are gonna react negatively and it's gonna be very scary. But you've got to take that step just in terms of people's health and also the trust that you have to build really critical. We can look at the recent. Interview that Arnie Sorenson of Mariette actually posted on both Twitter and LinkedIn. And I think this is really a transformational moment to use Twitter and LinkedIn to really deliver a message it was extraordinarily painful to see a drop of About 75 % in their revenues for Marriott in almost all markets meant that you needed to take some really dramatic and drastic measures. And he went on and very emotionally, I might say, to really address that, to be transparent about it. And you're just talking about being emotional. I think one of the successful things that he did in delivering that Very painful news is that he was very empathetic and reassuring. And that's key, isn't it? This is a time for inspiration. This is an emotional moment. And just giving people facts is really not enough. So you have to remember that you have to inspire people to push themselves, to get up in the morning, to be giving their best and bringing their best to continuing at whatever jobs they're engaged in. And also to have a feeling of we're in it together. You can look at Paul Hudson from Sanofi, the CEO of Sanofi where He actual went to over the weekend to a delivery distribution centre and saw people packaging medicines, in that all those were volunteers. So these things inspire people, they make, they really make you feel, you need those stories. You need to continue to provide the examples of what your colleagues are doing. You also say that it's very important for these business leaders to be consistent and decisive. Tell us more about what you mean by that. Well, you need to take strong decisions. And once you take a decision There are always people who are going to second guess you in any large entity. So we can't go back. We have to move forward. We have to take a decision and we have to stay the course. And we can look at the example of Governor Cuomo, who has been utterly fantastic and all over the country people are looking to him. He has daily press briefings. He's speaking out about the reality of where we are in New York. Talking about hospital capacity, lack of masks, reaching out and networking with leaders all over the country for help. This is really the kind of leadership that we need to see. He's not telling you what you wanna hear. He's telling you what you need to know and he's asking you to actually change your behaviour in order to be able to address some of these challenges. One of the big worries for so many people, the big fear is what if I lose my job. What if I'm laid off? What if I'm not getting a paycheque? It happened at Marriot and we're probably gonna hearing this for For more and more companies eventually. What is the best way for CEOs or other business leaders to deliver this information, this painful news to their staff? What should they say? and not say? So I think that what they should say is actually the the what the facts are about the decision they've taken and why they have come to that decision. Most people want to hear, you know, they want to feel that you're being honest with them. It doesn't really help to try to hide where you're going as a company or the or any drastic or difficult steps that you have to take. And again, we can take the lesson from Marriott. About an extraordinarily difficult situation. We know, however, the travel industry is extremely hit, airlines, cruises, hotels, events, so I think people need to understand why you've come to a decision. And then you need to really just be Clear about what's happening .>> Kathy, you have lived through so many crises and you have advised clients through all of them whether it's 911, or the financial crisis and now this pandemic, you say that this Corona virus crisis Is the toughest one of all, tell us what you need. So what's different about this crisis and it is different from others because others left a really deep impact on us. They took us up they transformed our worlds in some ways, but this crisis changes and impacts our daily life. For every single person, literally around the world. So what we need is true leadership at every level. We need leaders to help us both with the emotional fears and we need leaders to help us understand what is happening on the health side of things. So we really need to have a central point a person, we can look To who can have confidence in who will really help us stay on our course and on our path. And if we do that this would be the difference between whether we come out of this really stronger, or whether we really find ourselves in difficult straits as we emerge from the pandemic. [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

Kathy Bloomgarden says it's crucial to be decisive and transparent.

Ruder Finn CEO's advice for leaders during the coronavirus pandemic

Leadership

Bloomgarden: "Be decisive and transparent." 

Ruder Finn CEO's advice to leaders during COVID-19 crisis

Bloomgarden says it's crucial to be decisive, transparent.