Five tips for leading your business through chaos

I think we can safely say that, right now, the world is in chaos. Everything that we read online and everything that we are seeing as business owners points to the fact that all of our carefully curated business plans are about to be blown out of the water.

2020 started with such promise, and then COVID-19 stepped into the spotlight. Businesses around the world are falling into chaos, with new companies failing too fast and more than half of all airlines grounded right now. With all of the business uncertainty, your staff that you have spent years training and working with are all looking to you for guidance.

The problem here is that amidst the chaos, you recognise that you don’t know a thing. You’ve spent years writing disaster plans and policies and burying them in the filing cabinet: there’s no easy route to business stability from here. You cannot predict where this virus is going to go – no one can say yet. So, you have to make the best of the situation and try to protect your business and your employees at the same time. With that in mind, here are five tips for getting through the chaos and – hopefully – coming out the other side in one piece.

Confront the facts

We can’t do much right now except to try to flatten the curve, and the way to do that is to stay at home and wait for the virus to burn out. If you can’t travel, the virus can’t travel. So, you need to face the facts, inform your staff and make tough decisions based on what you do know. You can ask your team to work from home, but you need to inform them of their pay, their new conditions and everything else that you can think of to make working from home easy for them.

Ask your staff what they need

You can dictate what you want to your staff, but you cannot assume you know what they’re most afraid of. In a business sense, you need to explain whether they are being stepped down from their jobs or if they are going to be able to continue business practices from home. You may have to reduce the use of some departments, from the marketing and SEO team to the IT and business development team. All of this needs to be discussed with your employees. You’re in this together and if you can keep your business running, you should.

Prepare yourself

You can’t tell people “just work from home” and think that’ll be enough. You need to prepare people properly and prepare for a little chaos while you all get used to the new normal. Ideally, you won’t have to be in business like this for long, but preparing people is essential.

Get video chatting

You can still effectively communicate with your team with virtual team building, and you can do it with video chat. This will keep the team motivated and working well. You could even build up your SEO team from home, too. Video chat keeps you connected to your staff, and it’s one of the best ways that you can work together and keep the motivation going.

Get excited

Eventually, this virus WILL go away. It won’t be the next thing, but if your business is on top of its actions, you can stay alive as a company while also ensuring that you are adhering to the safety measures put before you. You can do this!