How Resilient Organizations Navigate Stressful Events

So I think whether it’s at Google, whether it’s Box [where I was before] what we’ve done is we have a lot of tools around stress management, whether it’s the Calm app for our employees, whether it’s something like Burnalong, to make sure that people are staying fit. Or Eatology, of course, that helps you do more mindful eating.

[It’s imperative to] come up with benefits that not only support the health of the employee, but also take care of their support system. So whether that’s their spouse, their parents, their children, what have you. Having benefits that are all encompassing has been a real blessing in some of the companies that I’ve been at, because they’re not treating me or any other employee just as a widget, but instead as a living, breathing system that needs to be nourished and kept alive.

Make your moves and then tell people that are remaining that they’re the ones that are going to be on the team to help move the organization forward.

And [if you don’t communicate this with absolute clarity] the people remaining begin to go back think about safety and security and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. They start to think about “what about me, what’s going to happen to me”.

The other thing related to that is I think you need to do it. You tell people what you know when you know it and you move on it as quickly as possible. You’ve heard countless stories and there have been many things written about things that get drawn out. Rumors start. People will tend to go to the negative aspects of their life and come back to “am I going to be affected by this?” And so the more defined it can be, the quicker it could be executed. And the sooner you’re able to move on, the better off it’s going to be.

What makes it even more challenging during this period is it’s always been better to be able to do those things in person. And when the people that are making those decisions can look other people directly in the eyes and say, “OK, we are where we are, we’ve done what we’ve had to do now let’s well, let’s all work together to move on.” That becomes even more challenging now. I think that’s why communication is even more critical today than ever before, because it’s hard to make that personal connection over Zoom like you would be able to do in person.

What we’ve seen and what studies are already showing in this environment is that the relationships employees have are more vertical than horizontal. They have the relationship with the people that they work for specifically and work with. But the the horizontal relationships that they often have, where they’ll interact with people that aren’t as close to their team or aren’t as connected to the team are becoming more frayed in this environment because they just don’t run into and see those people. You have to just work at keeping it going.

The horizontal relationships that they often have, where they’ll interact with people that aren’t as close to their team or aren’t as connected to the team are becoming more frayed in this environment because they just don’t run into and see those people. You have to just work at keeping it going.

I’ll give you an example. One thing we’re doing is one of our engineers created a piece of software called Coffee Roulette. And it just may sound a little cheesy, but what it is, is it randomly grabs multiple, like three employees, says here, go get a cup of coffee together, virtually. And since it’s a random selection, you’re getting people to meet each other and interface with each other that may not otherwise do that. That’s one thing. I know other companies that are using Slack. There is a company that has an add in to Slack that does just that, in an even more sophisticated way. If I remember the name, I’ll mention it. But I met with them. It’s a great company. So there are things you have to do there.

But we’re social animals. At the end of the day we’re social animals. We like being with each other and we’re seeing that around the country. People, even though they know it might not be safe, are foolishly getting together in big crowds because they’re social animals. They want to be together. And we should just never forget that we just have to be safe.

I think the more engaged you can make people and the more you can respond back to those those thoughts and those ideas the better off the organization will be. And don’t care about who gets credit for it, but call people out (in a good way). Public recognition and ways for people to feel like they are still making a difference to the organization is hugely important, because as has been mentioned now several times by the panelists, it is tougher, much tougher because we are social folks to read the energy, read the positivity and really engage with individuals.

So I think the more things we can do to maintain that positivity and things like calling people out for good ideas, recognizing folks, simple thank yous for things that are going on well, so that even though it’s virtual, people can kind of feel the pat on the back. While they may not be in a room with someone, they can still feel that that positivity coming from the organization. And so I think the more there’s encouragement, recognition and making people part of those solutions, I think all are positive ways to keep moving everyone in the same direction.