How Can Collaboration Help Business Leaders?

I want to talk about collaboration and some of the impacts that COVID has had on different groups during this period.  And I was thinking about the broader impacts across businesses, teams, staff, and that the effects are wide and varied as we know, and I think it's important that we take a bit of time to think about those things and how collaboration in different ways can help.

And if we start to think about leaders, they're the people that own, manage and run these businesses and have personal stakes in those organisations and they would undoubtedly have had to make some very difficult decisions or even challenging decisions.  Some businesses have been very fortunate to thrive in this period, and that's fantastic. And there's also been those businesses really pushing on and trying to survive in this period.  And, unfortunately, no matter what we all do, we will have lost some businesses, they wouldn't have been able to cope and carry on.  

So, it's a very difficult time and it has been a difficult time for business leaders, and I was thinking about how collaboration can help them.  And I think for me, there's a real critical role at a senior leadership stage in the business where, as a leader, you want that team around you who can work through those challenges with you, who can give you that bit of support and help you implement those solutions and critically will work with you in a unified way to implement an agreed outcome or an agreed objective when they are talking to staff or teams or even third parties, clients, etc.  What's being said is, is a consistent and continuous message, and that is so key in terms of the business having clarity to its broader stakeholders, but also in terms of giving that confidence and that support to a leader, to know that there is a group of people working with them that are there to support and assist and help to move the situation on.

So, I think if you're currently a leader of a business or you're running a business or you're part of a senior team, the critical thing for you really, is to take that time to think about what you've had to do, what you need to do, and to make sure that you all work together to have a common direction of travel, to have a common way forward and really make sure you can have difficult conversations amongst yourselves as a team so that when you come out of that room, that virtual room, that Microsoft teams room that we find ourselves in these days, that actually you're all  talking from the same page, saying the same thing, showing a unified front to staff, teams, the broader world, but critically that you have clarity of direction and you're all pulling in the same direction.

So, perhaps take some time, if you can get an hour to yourselves, just take a step back and reflect, because it's really important to do that when we're all under pressure and we're all very busy, and just think about where you are, where you need to get to and the things that you need to do, and just challenge yourself, say, 'are we being consistent, do we have absolute clarity', and just take a little bit of time to do that, a minute or so, or an hour or so here, at this point to make sure you are on the same page will pay dividends over the coming weeks and months.