The Victoria business community is, like everyone across Canada, grappling with the economic and health impacts of the COVID-19 virus.
Douglas spoke to entrepreneurs and professionals who support and inspire their customers and the greater community through their work, asking for their feedback on how they’re coping with the crisis, the resources they’re using, and the advice they give all of us moving forward.
In Part 1, below, business coach Diane Lloyd, FamilySparks founder Erin Skillen, business strategist Clemens Rettich and PR specialist Trisha Lees provide their perspectives.
DIANE LLOYD
Diane Lloyd is a coach, speaker and facilitator. She founded Inspired Results Group for leaders who are co-creating cultures, shaping conversations, and impacting lives in organizations around the world.
How are you coping right now, and how are you feeling about how the COVID-19 virus will affect the economy?
We are all experiencing a range of thoughts and emotions during this time of social distancing and economic freeze, and the best way for all of us to cope, is to have conversations about how we are truly feeling at any given time. Leaning on your inner circle of support right now to share your fears and feelings is the best way to stay resilient during a time of uncertainty. To deny ourselves this experience means that it will come up later in unhealthy ways, at inappropriate moments. And it’s Ok if your support system isn’t the people you are currently isolated with at home.
What advice are you giving your clients for riding this out?
I am always looking at this from a leadership lens, and right now we need courageous leadership more than ever! Courageous leaders are staying calm, being clear about expectations and what they know or don’t know, and they are staying curious and creative with possibilities to do things differently. This is how I am supporting my clients right now, by helping think differently about what being brave looks like in these moments of uncertainty.
What is the opportunity in the challenge?
What I notice right now is that people are really being guided by their values through their decision making and choices. Victoria is a generous, creative and resourceful community that cares about one another, and that is what we are seeing as the beautiful opportunity through this pandemic. Showing up for others in whatever way you can is the opportunity right now, and I believe that the new business innovations or service delivery models will come when we stay connected to our values, and think about the larger systems and needs that are emerging in our families and communities.
What advice have you applied or are you applying from previous experiences coping through crises?
I am trying to support myself by getting enough fresh air and exercise, connecting with people I care and about and limiting my social media and news exposure throughout the day. What is happening right now can be overwhelming for our brains and hearts to process, so I am a believer in staying informed, but not inundating myself with external noise. Right now, I want to stay connected to my inner compass and values as I show up for my family, friends and clients to support them to lead their teams through this changing landscape.
What are your resources right now? Do you have a mentor supporting you, peer group, books you read?
I have been leaning on my coach, my close friends, husband and my amazing team who are supporting one another (and me) to stay creative, hopeful and finding ways to serve others which is fundamentally what we do as coaches.
What advice do you have for others experiencing this alongside you?
I think the greatest challenge for us all is releasing expectations about everything right now. When we release those expectations, we can stay open to new possibilities with a curious mindset. Find your key people, ask for support, give support and don’t isolate yourself mentally and emotionally. This is a time for us all to lean on each other and create a new normal together from a place of hope.
ERIN SKILLEN
Erin Skillen is the co-founder and COO of FamilySparks, a social impact company providing mental health support for individuals and families. Their digitally driven, clinically based products and services are designed to meaningfully change lives. They are a previous Douglas Magazine 10 to Watch award winner.
How is FamilySparks coping right now?
As a mental health company, we’re busy in a good way. We closed our office to in-person therapy sessions, but are still able to offer video, chat and phone counselling. As the days go by, more and more people are reaching out for care. We’re aware how this situation could trigger or exacerbate mental illness and are ensuring we do all we can to support people through this. We’re also checking in on our team to make sure the caregivers are cared for as well.
How has the crisis affected your business, and how do you anticipate it will affect it?
While we absolutely wish this wasn’t happening, it has been positive for our company. We’ve been able to provide meaningful, timely care for our clients and they’ve expressed their appreciation. They’re seeing how much better positioned a local social impact company is to support them rather than a faceless major corporation. We already had strong relationships with our clients, and this has only made us each more grateful for one another.
What is the opportunity in the challenge for you and the business?
We have been getting new clients as a response to this crisis, so it’s an opportunity for growth. At the same time, receivables are trickling as clients and their accounting departments adapt to remote work, layoffs, etc. so we must keep an even closer eye on cash flow. This is a chance to really demonstrate our strengths and care for our community at the same time. It’s hectic, but powerful.
What advice have you applied or are you applying from previous experiences coping through crises?
Our company, under the leadership of our CEO Dr. Jillian Roberts, managed the crisis response during the tragic loss of the two little girls in Oak Bay. We created a team of counsellors that kept calm, provided clear information on how to cope and spent many, many hours listening and empathizing. We are doing the same now with our team of therapists. Crises are moments where the community come together and focus on what really matters. This virus is another chance for us to carry and hold one another – metaphorically of course as we stay home and distanced!
What are your resources right now? Do you have a mentor supporting you, peer group, books you read?
Right now, we are very much in demand as a resource ourselves, helping companies and the public manage their mental health during this uncertain time. Each day we get requests for information on a range of topics – how to talk to children about it, how to lead a team through it, how to cope with self-isolation. We’re deeply grateful to be able to help people through this and take our role seriously.
What advice do you have for others experiencing this alongside you?
This is not business as usual. Don’t expect the same volume of work from your staff that you normally get. These are extraordinary times and society has taken extraordinary measures in response. Not everyone will be able to work at 100% remotely, especially if your staff suddenly have kids at home who would normally be at school. Be compassionate, understanding, and accommodating whenever possible. At the end of the day, we’re all human beings and we all have unique life circumstances impacted by this situation.
We have articles available our website at familysparks.com/resources including:
The Employer’s Guide to Your Team’s Mental Health During COVID-19 (PDF)
Our Guide to Coping with Coronavirus Anxiety
7 Ways to Create Joy During Isolation
Maintaining Your Mental Health During COVID-19 (PDF)
CLEMENS RETTICH
Clemens Rettich has supported the improved performance of organizations across North America for over 20 years. His core expertise lies in Organizational Performance, at the intersection of human capital and lean processes. He is a regular contributor to Douglas magazine.
How are you coping right now, and how are you feeling about how the COVID-19 virus will affect the economy?
For the time being, things are going as well as can be expected. I’m personally coping well. It is important for me to maintain as much of my routine as possible. I still get dressed for work and go into the office as safety and our own guidelines allow. I am feeling more concerned about the economy than about the virus itself. The implications of cascading shutdowns (including in the global supply chain), bankruptcies, payroll failures, leading to further implications for mental health and social stability, are a oncern. I am writing an article on LinkedIn about this right now, and as I’ve been at it for a week, it is proving to be one of the more difficult pieces to write in awhile.
What advice are you giving your clients for riding this out?
In a nutshell we’re talking about:
- Maintain excellent communication with your financial, legal, and lending stakeholders; don’t wait for an emergency to talk to them for the first time in years.
- Over-communicate — with your team/employees, customers, shareholders, suppliers and the world at large.
- Keep the tone of your communication practical, positive, and supportive.
- Do everything you can to dial in cash flow, from pricing through aggressive margin management to your A/R and A/P.
- As well as high-pulse communication, support your internal culture by ensuring that management walks its talk. Be doubly cautious of subtle signals (management gets to work from home; front line stays in the line of fire — sometimes necessary but must be acknowledged). Tone is everything right now.
- Work with your finance professionals to optimize your balance sheet: liquidity matters.
What is the opportunity in the challenge?
Many are talking about immediate opportunities such as moving sales online, etc. But in the world of organizational behaviour, we talk about extinction vs. reinforcement or sustainability. I think that’s where the greatest opportunity lies: minimizing the extinction of positive behaviours we’re acquiring now, after the crisis passes. Any organization that can sustain some of these new behaviours and practices will gain a new competitive advantage. These behaviours include:
- sustaining the closeness of culture that evolves in times of crisis, under good leadership (the ‘war stories’ of getting through this together).
- sustaining the new quality of communication, including the use of remote conferencing systems that organizations have talked about a lot more than they have used them, in the past.
- sustaining the cash and balance sheet discipline after the crisis.
- reinforcing the value of digital tools, and effectively managed change generally; we haven’t been in Kansas, Toto, for decades, and maybe this is the event to finally wake up a larger number of organizations to that reality.
- understanding that lean does not mean over-optimization. Most organizations still equate ‘lean = no fat’, which leads to the nonsense of running staffing, administration, inventory buffers, supply chain, etc. optimized for perfect loads and sunny days. This is staggeringly risky, but most organizations do it anyway. I’m not expecting miracles, but if even a few key players change their behaviour and optimize for reality that has spikes, surges, and people who need a break, we will be better off.
What advice have you applied or are you applying from previous experiences coping through crises?
That communication, and doing the difficult work of uncovering, and acting according to the facts, are central to resiliency in a crisis.
Also, that it is important to plan for what happens after the crisis. The landscape will be different. Customers may have changed what they are listening for, competitors may have adapted in new ways or may have disappeared altogether. We can’t predict what tomorrow will look like, but we can anticipate that it will be different, and as entrepreneurs and leaders, if we can stay out of the panic and the temptation to react reflexively, we have an opportunity to create new value in new ways.
What are your resources right now? Do you have a mentor supporting you, peer group, books you read?
My resources are my family, my colleagues, and the decades of learning how humans behave. Family, friends, and colleagues give me strength, and having insights into human behaviour (especially in organizations) gives me clarity and keeps me positive. Understanding why people hoard toilet paper helps us not get caught in the toxic feedback loop of negativity that makes crises so much worse.
What advice do you have for others experiencing this alongside you?
- Take the time to understand;
- Take the time to communicate well;
- Pay attention to the basics (cash and culture, balance sheets and relationships) rather than being reactive and twiddling knobs on the machine in a panic;
- While operating inside the guidelines set by health authorities, do everything you can to stick to routines. That supports good mental health.
TRISHA LEES
Trisha Lees is the principal at Rep Lab Communications, specializing marketing and public relations, with a particular emphasis on crisis management. She has developed expertise in real estate development, health care, health and wellness, fashion and oil and gas, though her work spans many industries. She is a past Douglas Magazine 10 to Watch award winner.
How is Rep Lab coping right now, and how are your clients feeling about how this will all play out?
This is a unique scenario where my clients and I are sharing the same anxiety, uncertainty and bewilderment about what’s happened in such a short amount of time. I’m a naturally optimistic person however at this time I am helping myself and others be ‘realists’ based on the devastating events surrounding COVID-19.
How has the crisis affected your business, and how do you anticipate it will affect it?
The crisis has impacted my existing clients in a variety of industries. All the events I was working on have been postponed or cancelled and anticipated business plans have been altered or put on hold. At the same time, I have begun work with new companies that need support communicating to their stakeholders about what their plans are amid the COVID-19 outbreak. Over time I expect traditional PR work will be quieter, and then companies will need help in re-establishing themselves. I think PR professionals can play a crucial communications role for companies as they work to get back to normal and to adapt to the way that normal will inevitably change.
What advice are you giving your clients for riding this out?
This is a truly unprecedented scenario where no one can anticipate the length of time that business will be impacted. I’ve advised companies to be honest and communicate openly and frequently with various audiences. Acting together as a community rather than as individual businesses will be key to weathering this storm.
What is the opportunity in the challenge for you and your business?
I work regularly with companies managing issues and crises, but never has a circumstance impacted so many facets of our businesses and lives overall. I have been grateful to have new companies reach out to Rep Lab for support; the challenge is in anticipating what lies ahead. Each company needs a 30, 60 and many days beyond strategy and I’ve been busily putting the same in place for my own business.
What advice have you applied or are you applying from previous experiences coping through crises?
The nature of a crisis is that it can’t be sustained indefinitely: it will pass. I know from helping companies in crisis and from my own experiences in business and life that time is a helper and a healer.
What are your resources right now? Do you have a mentor supporting you, peer group, books you read?
I rely on the support and ear of my best friend Neil Tran, owner of web firm LeapXD. I also run every day and take breaks from ‘thinking business’ with my young daughters. In this circumstance I have found reading books about spirituality such as The Untethered Soul (by Michael Singer) the most helpful for its ability to help us look at ourselves in a new light.
What advice do you have for others experiencing this alongside you?
Think about the big picture in terms of the parts of your life that matter the most to you. Surround yourselves with people who love you. Take breaks from reading all forms of media. The discomfort of the unknown often leads to many things you didn’t know about yourself.
In Part 2, read insights from developer Ed Geric, brand strategist Doug Brown, restaurant owner Calen McNeil, and KWENCH founder Tessa McLoughlin.
