“Coronavirus is not a crisis. It is an ambiguous crisis”.
F.O.G*, Dr. Keith Merron has a great article on the current situation, “Coronavirus is not a crisis. It is an ambiguous crisis”.
By that he means, it isn’t the fact that COVID is a crisis, we know how to deal with those, but because much of the economic effects, and second, third-order effects are unknowable, we need to use tools that can help us deal with the ambiguity.
Keith posts that in such times, leaders need to step up (he calls them leaders of FTOS- families, teams, organizations, or societies).
And what does an FTOS leader do?
1. Create communication nodes
People are going to be hungry for information. So you must take it upon yourself to be a trusted, reliable, primary source they turn to.
2. Keep your head above water
Just because everyone else is losing their heads, doesn’t mean you need to. What people REALLY need is somebody who can stay calm and keep their eye on the ball, regardless of what events transpire.
3. Keep learning together
Keep taking in good information, keep learning, and above all, keep sharing. The faster you can learn collectively, the faster you can adapt, the more resilient to fortune you become.
4. Make micro-decisions
Since planning for the future is very hard during a crisis, you need to focus on the now. And being decisive doing so.
5. Bring some authority
As a leader, you are expected to create the narrative. So then, yeah, create it. Don’t just react to events. This is no time to ask, “Hey Gang, what do you think we should do?”, that’s not their job. Their job is to follow your plan. Your job is to create a plan/narrative worth following.
*Friend of Gapingvoid
