COVID-19 Crisis: Time for a Pandemic Self-Assessment

Mid-May is the two month mark since the start of the coronavirus shutdown and resulting economic crisis that has dramatically altered nearly every business sector. Though many of us would agree that it seems like much more than two months – perhaps at this point it’s time for a personal check-in about how you’re bearing up so far. Maybe you can put some time aside to pause and do a pandemic self-assessment.

I spent some time with a couple of Cambria colleagues recently to frame a pandemic self-assessment — questions that stimulate reflection, self-awareness, and insights around how to be most effective now; how to address near-term and future challenges; and how to actively focus on self-care to stay energized and empowered.

For a useful pandemic self-assessment, the four clusters below feature questions to be considered in any order – and that function as provocative, useful prompts. Important breakthroughs come in asking the right questions, not in having any specific “right” answers.

Personal Connection: Questions focused on the individual.

• These are unprecedented times, how are you doing? How is this crisis impacting you personally?
• Are your family members safe, are they with you, how are they managing through this?
• How are you coping day-to-day?
• How are you taking care of yourself? How are you keeping yourself strong? (rest, exercise, stress management, nutrition, etc.)

Business Implications: Questions exploring business realities and challenges.

• How is the Covid-19 crisis affecting your business, short-term?
• What key principles and values are guiding your decisions right now?
• From this point in time, what are your next challenges?
• Thinking past the current crisis, what are the long-term implications?

Organizational Impact: Questions about how people are coping now.

• What’s your best read on how your people are coping with this crisis?
• What are you and other leaders doing to support them now?
• How is this crisis informing new ways of working?
• Given these new ways of working, what’s successful now and what isn’t?
• How are employees impacted differently by generation, culture, personality, etc.?

Leadership Implications: Questions to explore how best to lead now.

• What’s important to demonstrate now as a leader? (more accessible, visible, showing calm and thoughtfulness; optimism, confidence, etc.)
• How is your leadership team stepping up to address these challenges with you?
• Beyond your internal resources, what additional support do you need right now?
• Do you have a sounding board or thought partner?
• What are you learning?

Final Thought

How are your people doing and what can you do to support them at this point?
As a leader, you might take some time at this two month point and engage your people with some of the questions detailed here. What better way to remind them that you know this is a time of unprecedented challenge – and to hear from them about how they’re coping.

Photo by Sarah Kilian on Unsplash