{"id":23839,"date":"2020-04-19T12:09:51","date_gmt":"2020-04-19T19:09:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=23839"},"modified":"2020-04-19T12:09:51","modified_gmt":"2020-04-19T19:09:51","slug":"your-organization-needs-a-coronavirus-war-room","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=23839","title":{"rendered":"Your Organization Needs a Coronavirus \u201cWar Room\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Harry M. Kraemer<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

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Editor\u2019s note: This is part of a series of articles based on Kellogg Executive Education webinars focused on COVID-19.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Harry Kraemer has long espoused a brand of values-based leadership that\u00a0relies heavily on self-reflection<\/a>, so that leaders can identify\u00a0what really matters<\/a>\u00a0and what sort of leader they want to be.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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This is all in the interest of doing the right thing for their organization, their employees, and their customers. But, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, those priorities can sometimes be at cross-purposes and \u201cthe right thing\u201d can be far from obvious.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an uncertain world and we have an awful lot of things to balance,\u201d says\u00a0Kraemer<\/a>, who is the former CEO of Baxter International and currently serves on 10 boards of directors, including for several healthcare organizations. It\u2019s a role that has given him a broad perspective on how to lead through the coronavirus crisis.<\/p>\n

Kraemer is also a clinical professor of leadership at the Kellogg School and shared some of his advice in a recent webinar from Kellogg Executive Education.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Covid-19:<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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To start, leaders must ensure that they are getting input from all perspectives within their organizations, as well as from trusted external sources.<\/p>\n

For example,\u00a0NorthShore University HealthSystem<\/a>, upon whose board Kraemer sits, has convened a \u201cwar room\u201d that includes not just doctors and nurses, but also other key voices, such as maintenance workers. The CEO is also in constant contact with local and state officials. For hospital leaders, this helps them decide how to do the right thing in terms of keeping both patients and staff healthy, as well as helping the surrounding healthcare community by sharing resources.<\/p>\n

Kraemer urges all leaders to convene a trusted and diverse war room so that no important vantage points are being overlooked. \u201cI would argue that no leader, if they\u2019re honest, is bright enough to figure out all of that\u201d on their own, he says.<\/p>\n

Hospitals are under one sort of intense pressure right now. At the other extreme are firms that are facing a severe slowdown in business. They may be weighing the need for layoffs. How transparent should those leaders be as they make these hard choices?<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my mind, there are very few things you cannot openly talk about,\u201d Kraemer says. And given that your employees will certainly notice piles of inventory accumulating or the inability to serve customers, it would be doing them a disservice to ignore the obvious.<\/p>\n

Tell employees what you do know and what you don\u2019t yet know. Then, make sure that you share information that demonstrates that you relate to their fears. Say, \u201cIf, in fact, we have to have layoffs, here\u2019s what our policies for severance would be. Here\u2019s what we\u2019re going to do to help you maintain your healthcare,\u201d he says, adding that you should make sure people in the organization are scouring the\u00a0federal CARES Act<\/a>\u00a0to help laid off or furloughed staff maximize their available benefits.<\/p>\n

Another concern leaders have right now is that they\u2019re being forced to make decisions with incomplete information\u2014when will businesses reopen, when will the patient surge peak in a particular area, etc.<\/p>\n

But, Kraemer insists, that is not an excuse to stop communicating with your teams.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I\u2019m a leader and I\u2019m in a crisis period, I\u2019ll never have as much information as I\u2019d like,\u201d he says. But \u201cit\u2019s the uncertainty that requires leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Harry M. Kraemer Editor\u2019s note: This...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,17,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-education","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23839"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23839\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23840,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23839\/revisions\/23840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}