My pandemic thoughts have been a little all over the place, as you’ve noticed if you’ve been reading the posts. This was how I felt, and an acknowledgment that sometimes I don’t know what to do. It wasn’t a great reflection of what I did and how I behaved though. A crisis can come to a business in all shapes and sizes. COVID-19 was certainly a doozy for my company and many small businesses. Even big business is taking a hit. Not all of them are quite so extreme but there are a few things you can do to make sure the wheels keep turning.
First, educate yourself. You need to know what’s happening and be able to connect it to your business. If we use the COVID-19 pandemic as an example, it was important that I follow the news, both political and scientific. I needed to know how the virus was transferred (and how it wasn’t) in order to keep my staff and clients safe. I also needed to know what the government was doing to affect the economy. I needed to know that a PPP existed so that I knew enough to apply for it. Especially in something with so many unknowns, it was extremely important to stay up to date on everything that was happening so I could act when necessary.
Second, make the decisions, and make them quickly. A crisis is not the time for analysis paralysis. All you can do is make the best choice for the information you have. This is where it’s important to know that you have good information, see step 1! Then it’s important to trust yourself. It’s not a bad time to check in with your “barometers” but ultimately these decisions need to be made in hours, not days or weeks. Get your information and move. You can always make changes later. It can be hard to make decisions based on sketchy evidence and mass confusion but you need to be able to move forward. You will never have all the information. Gather what you can, make the tough decisions, and move forward.
Finally, be ready to change. The information coming in is going to continue to update and you need to be ready to change with it. Just because you made one good (or bad) decision doesn’t mean you can stop making decisions. As more details come out, you need to be able to act accordingly.