Author: Steven Paul
For any business owner, regardless of the size of their business or industry, current global events, economic crisis, and a global pandemic can easily weigh one down, forcing a business owner to keep working towards a solution to the point of exhaustion, and that too does not guarantee that your business will come out of the other side of said crisis unscathed.
So, what is an entrepreneur or small business owner to do in times of crisis to keep their mind focused? If you’ve been wondering the same, then you’re at the right place.
Since the business owner is often the leader who others follow, remaining calm and focused, especially in times of crisis, is crucial. Keeping that in mind, here are a few tried and tested tips to have a focused mindset in times of crisis.
Manage Your Mindset
Prolonged stress can affect one’s ability to focus and remain productive as a leader of a business and in their personal life. Our brains are attuned to react to threats based on their immediacy and legitimacy. But, the good news is that there are practical steps that can be taken to manage one’s mindset so that onecan stay focused during times of crisis. Buffers are strategies that put you in a more positive state in a time of crisis. These buffers work by providing a sense of certainty (fewer open loops), autonomy (acknowledging opportunity), and relatedness (sharing experiences, goalswith employees), and can help the mind stay focused at times of a crisis.
Have a Corporate Strategy
This basically means remaining focused on beating the odds no matter what. This oftentimes means making a bold move early rather than sticking to traditional methods. This could also mean having to reframe what winning means for you and your team. Reframing acknowledges that your company competes based on talent, and more importantly, to influence on a larger stage, and not just in their industry.
Resource Allocation
Every successful CEO takes a methodical approach to matching talent with roles that create the most value. For this, decision-makers often have to take a granular approach and focus on quantitative metrics to ensure that resources are swiftly reallocated to where they would be most productive.
Building a Positive Culture
This means going above and beyond mere employee engagement. This means building, measuring and managing all cultural elements, which will have an impact on productivity.During a crisis, it’s easy to lose focus of any company’s greatest asset – their employees. This often includesthoughtful approaches towards storytelling and aligning the company’s values, along with role modeling and formal reinforcements. All this helps build a positive culturethat will keep employees motivated even during times of crisis.
Be Optimistic, But Realistic
This basically means acknowledging that there is a crisis while still maintaining the belief that there is light at the end of the tunnel. A cocktail of realism and optimism at a time of crisis can help a business owner make their situation and that of their employees a little better by providing a cushion to reduce the overall discomfort and stress of the crisis. Designing strategies and people strategies around these core concepts can help business owners in alleviating the stress of their workforce while at the same time maximizing their efficiency and focus.
