[This is the first article from e27‘s Key Opinion Leader (KOL) Series]
In my ten years of growing theAsianparent (TAP) — from running bootstrapped operations to fundraising to creating platforms from scratch to entering markets across continents — I thought I had cleared my hurdles in this Olympic test of leadership, only to face the next leg of the race: pole vault in the form of a pandemic.
Putting a screeching halt to my momentum, I stop to take a slow, deep and steadying breath. I didn’t train for this. The bar is too high. But if I don’t clear it, everything comes tumbling down.
This is the situation every leader came face to face with this year.
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Yes, it didn’t come with a pole. And no, it’s not the fear of the unknown that’s paralysing. We are neither strangers to fear, nor the unknown.
It’s volatility that’s the enemy — charting a path knowing the wind or ground could shift anytime. Yet what’s demanded of leaders is the opposite: stability, dependability, certainty. Tough to be in these times.
With TAP spanning 13 countries — lockdowns and re-openings happening at different dates with different measures — planning has suddenly become such a tall order; and the team must grapple with frustration in a way they never had to.
While this particular stress is new to us, being a cross-cultural company is not. The success of TAP has long relied on localised strategies, so we applied this internally.
We reviewed the needs and targets of each office, and of course, no ‘one-size-fits-all’ roadmap emerged. But those roadmaps became our lifeline.
Another thing that wasn’t new to us is remote work. Many in our team are mums and dads who thrive in flexible setups. When homeschooling was thrown into the mix, we translated our office daycare services into online tutoring. That was the obvious move.
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Then we realised that with both parents working from home, Monday to Friday office hours would be chaotic. So we offered 4-day work weeks (any four days of the week) at staggered work hours (any eight of the day). I think I heard a collective sigh of relief when it was announced.
Because we all need to breathe.
After we established protocols against COVID-19 to safeguard everyone’s physical health, mental health was our next priority. Part of this was holding company-wide meditation, yoga, fitness, Bollywood dancing, and art workshops.
These early pivots set the tone for how we, as a company, would be overcoming the challenges presented by the new normal — first, by acknowledging that the situation we’re all in is hard, but work need not make it any harder. And second, by making lemonade (because if 2020 were a fruit, it would be a lemon).
The team has squeezed out a lot of creative solutions, and one I found particularly sweet was our leadership team ‘offsite’.
We usually fly people in to one country, which means spending a lot of time and money on logistics. An online offsite requires much much less, so this year we were able to double our participants from 15 to 30. Some of the hotel savings even went to a fantastic lucky draw for the attendees: the latest Samsung Flip phone.
We were also able to have amazing guest speakers dial in from across the region for the seminar: From Beijing (Jeff Tiong, CEO of PatSnap), from Malaysia (Cheryl Goh, Founding CMO of Grab), and from Singapore (Happy Marketer’s Managing Partner Prantik Mazumdar, and Rotimatic CEO Rishi Israni).
What I’ve learned from all this?
While product pivots are the way for companies to find success, if not survival, in the roughest waters we’ve seen for a while, getting the team on board with new plans amidst a very palpable crisis requires shifts in culture.
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Leaders have to dig deeper, communicate more clearly, and care more concretely than ever before.
In this pandemic, I’ve stopped taking our numbers at face value. There is a story to every drop or surge in sales, to the varying productivity rates across markets, to an uptick in traffic in certain categories over others.
And as CEO, my first job is to listen. And before that, to be willing to listen, so we can uncover these stories and learn from the truths they hold. And then act.
That’s our 14-foot pole.
That’s why no leader is unequipped to clear that bar, to weather this storm. A seasoned one will have years of hard-earned wisdom like the rings you’ll find in the trunk of an old tree. A young one will have the flexibility of bamboo, bending in the wind but not breaking.
Whichever one you are, listen to your team. Before that, ask. And then act.
Remember that pole vaulting isn’t a top-down leap. Bottom-up is the way to go, if you want to make it clear to the other side.
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Image Credit: Frans Vledderon Unsplash
This article was first published on September 15, 2020
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