How Do I Survive the Pandemic?

Like virtually all businesses today, yours is most likely scrambling to adapt to the sudden business changes brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. We decided to ask Dr. David Gruder, Blue Sky’s 12-award-winning Business Success Psychologist, for his suggestions. Here are his tips that could prove useful to you.

How can business owners and employees stay motivated while working from home?

1. Create an overall life energy allocations format. Business owners need to remind their employees about the importance of building a routine into their day. Establishing a schedule that helps them maintain their personal and work well-being. But how? Give the employees basic guidelines for structuring their daily schedule. The schedule will vary from company to company, but what is essential is that you give them a schedule that they can make their own. It should include several categories:

• Work time (what tasks need accomplishing each day? What calls made?)
• Exercise time (Yoga, workout videos, walks outside)
• Relationship time (connection with family and friends)
• Personal time (meditating, reading, listening to books, watching videos – anything that allows the individual to recharge and grow)

2. Mindset boosting. Boost your mindset and self-development. First, business owners need to remind their employees to disavow fear. It is an immune system killer. But we want everyone to remain healthy. Right now, it is easy to get lost in social media and messages of hysteria, hype, and fake science. Avoid any articles that tell you that the sky is falling. Master Yoda said it best:

“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” 

Second, use self-development resources. If you have time, use that time to elevate yourself instead of binge-watching television. No one can prescribe what self-development each individual should choose; self-development will vary by individual. Some ideas include: listening to a thought-provoking podcast, learning a new skill, watching how-to videos, taking an online course.

3. Have your team brainstorm about the unexpected opportunities that this health-crisis has inadvertently provided for your business. Have a video conference about it. Turn those opportunities into initiatives that can build your company’s strengths. Sell the idea, for the best possible price, after the economy bounces back.

How can you improve employee morale? Continue business?

Stay in constant communication with your key personnel. This communication should be via video call, not by written communication (text, email, social networking). Create a schedule to call employees on a customized frequency. Every executive and manager is aware which employees are self-starters who do not need constant communication versus employees who need lots of attention. Customize the quantity of these interactions. What do you think each employee needs? Have you asked them what they need? An excellent place to start could be having a team video chat at the beginning and the end of each week. Then customizing daily or every other day chats with individual team members.

As for your business, take a similar approach. Reach out to key customers and clients. Talking with those groups will help you inadvertently identify opportunities for your company. Find out what your clients need and provide it to them. Even provide this for free if they cannot pay for your services. Do not reject clients who cannot pay for you. Invest in the relationship.

Next, prepare for recovery. While amid this pandemic, it is essential to remember that we will recover. Now is the time to improve and expand your products or services to prepare for when the recovery arrives. Ask yourself and your team questions like, “how can we use this time to improve? How can we work on expanding our products or services?

Finally, invest in education. Devote time to expanding your vision of different ways to grow your business. Right now, there is an unparalleled opportunity because there are all kinds of free resources online to show you how to grow your business during this pandemic. If you have the money, invest in a higher quality educational resources. If you do not, you still have no excuse, because there are free resources so you too, can pursue higher education.

What lessons can a business take from this pandemic?

Businesses can become anti-fragile. Anti-fragility is the increase in capability to thrive as a result of stressors, shocks, volatility, mistakes, noise, attacks, or failures. In other words, it is resilience. Each business has its level of ability to harvest gifts and blessings from these unexpected experiences. It is using this approach to the pandemic, rather than choosing to be the victim of this unanticipated experience.

All of us at Blue Sky stand ready to assist you throughout the dramatically unfolding health and economic emergency, so your business (and your clients’ businesses) remain viable during it, and so the groundwork for being acquired afterward continues to be built.