Summary Of Lessons Learned From CHROs
Happy Monday. Hope you had a nice weekend. I attended an inspiring and practical virtual panel Friday with CHROs from Unilever, Twitter, HP, Hilton and VIR Biotechnology discussing work during and beyond this COVID-19 period. Thought their ideas and plans might be helpful to you in your work, for your teams, or for your clients. And I've added to some of their thoughts with my organizational psychologist background. Enjoy and let me know if this is helpful. I took pages of notes, so I’ll continue to mine my notes for more themes and takeaways.
Panelists:
· Jennifer Christie, CHRO, Twitter
· Tracy Keogh, CHRO, HP
· Leena Nair, CHRO, Unilever
· Steven Rice, CHRO, VIR Biotechnology (a leader in generating therapeutic and preventative options to address COVID-19)
· Matthew Schuyler, CHRO, Hilton
Lessons learned so far with the impact of COVID-19 on their business:
Lean into your values, both the company's and your own. Bijal's take: A company's values are even more important now because employees want to feel part of something bigger, especially when they cannot see and interact with their coworkers the same way. Plus, tap into your own values as a role model, for your own sanity, and to gut check actions before taking them.
· Action item: boil your values down to 3 words. Put those words on a post it, set a reminder on your phone with them in caps, but keep them front and center, to guide your actions, responses, policies. If you don't already know your 3 key values, let's hop on the phone and get you your 3 core value words pronto!
Mobility will change. There are some workers who will not go back to an office. How will you adapt as a leader? Bijal’s take: Don’t be caught unprepared with this societal shift.
Action item: Reflect and jot down your strengths as a leader while working remotely. List out how you can you leverage those strengths if a % of your team is permanently WFH. For those of you who have taken the StandOut strengths assessment, ask yourself what the best version of you would do in this situation when using your top 2 strength roles. If you haven’t taken StandOut yet, you can take it for free for a limited time here.
Change management will look different. We learned that our leaders and employees are much more agile than we anticipated. They are able to change the way they work dramatically in a very short period of time. In the past, we focused on the small, vocal resisters. No more. The vast majority of people can change quickly. Bijal’s take: After managing large scale changes for my clients for a decade, I learned that the #1 reason people resisted change was because they didn’t feel leadership understood their particular situation.
Action item: Don’t pretend the change won’t be hard; instead, acknowledge the suck as a leader and let them know how the company will support them.
Leaders must set the pace for work. Your team members will follow your lead. Bijal’s take: yes, set the pace (the “what”), but the “how” is also important. Empathize, be human-centered.
Action item: If you feel you could use a refresher on emotional intelligence, email to take an emotional intelligence assessment and work with me 1:1 to up your score. Your team will thank you! Remember, at the end of the day, people will remember how you made them feel, not your words.