While the regulatory and reactionary environment can certainly bamboozle even the smartest and toughest of leaders, staying calm under pressure is your discipline as a business leader. This is a time to aptly steer your business toward a changed landscape, and this could be your time to really shine as a leader!

• Change is Imminent for Most

• Solutions are Available

• We Already Know a Great Deal

• Now is the Time for Leaders to Shine

• Early-Mover Status Could Pay Off

While often in business, the cost of change – or even researching change - may exceed the benefit; the opposite for many is true right now. Are you taking advantage of opportunities to improve and rethink? Our presentation here delivers a critical checklist of questions and opportunities to be asked and answered uniquely by each distinctive business. These are the footwork to blueprints which can be formulated for competitive edge and best solutions for recovery and/or leading through and beyond the COVID-19 era.

Questions & Opportunities Part 1: Planning

Back to Leadership Basics

• Reconsider all aspects of your business plan.

• Most companies will need to change.

• Cookie-cutter solutions will never deliver competitive edge.

• If you succeeded without the 3-6 month safety net until now, kudos to your risk tolerance and look for ways to further your success in the best direction. Don’t give up.

Customer Demand

• Do you know tomorrow’s customers, their concerns and how to address their needs?

• Are your choices and communications providing assurance to your customers and to your customer deliveries?

• Can you reposition your service or product to address immediate needs of the COVID-19 landscape?

• What about e-Commerce?

Future Vision

• Are you deploying your inventive side to see the future of your business?

• If you can see your company’s future, are you making choices today that successfully move toward and protect that future?

• Op - Ed and slanted media will impact demand unless or until it’s exposed as wrong or obsolete.

• Empower yourself with both what people believe and what you have researched to be true. They may differ.

• Does your revised plan build upon or newly engage the relationships that best serve your future? Can you see where your best help will come from?

• Is your supply chain already disrupted and does it need to change? Will your supply chain impact how tomorrow’s customers and stakeholders perceive your business?

• Are you cutting back too far now to be feasibly responsive to emerging opportunities?

• What have you learned about doing more with less?

• Are you using technology to a better advantage without extracting the judgment needed from key thought leaders?

A Pivot or a Leap?

• Is one foot in place like Shake Shack or are you leaping like Lexus?

• Can you “leap” without brand confusion and/or negative imaging?

• Re-evaluate brand, culture & building trust: have you properly aligned these?

• Will your succession planning change? Will your exit planning change? Will there be a wave of mergers and acquisitions that will result from COVID-19’s impact on business? If you prepare for that now, can you improve upon your options?

The New Flow of Money

• Contrary to the memes, not everyone is losing money.

• Money isn’t disappearing but rather changing hands in new ways. Find your place in the new economy.

• Per Morgan Stanley: $243M of the $349B Paycheck Protection Program Round 1 (nearly 7% of the PPP) went to publicly traded companies. This may create investment opportunities. 74% of PPP loans were under $150K each according to the Small Business Administration.

• If you’re aiming for loan forgiveness, what is your contingency plan if the loan is not forgiven? What can you newly accomplish if the loan is forgiven? Are you still in the hunt for money?

• As we tee up for Round 2 of CARES Act PPP and EIBL, are you watching and/or jumping in?

Questions & Opportunities Part 2: The Rollout

Nimbleness & Scenario Planning

• There’s much we don’t know yet, but we know enough to be scenario planning. If A, then B. If C, then D, etc. Criteria, measurements and vision facilitate quick action and the confidence of others.

• Decision Tools: Do your data scientists know the benchmarks, range of possibilities and what success looks like? Have you provided them enough latitude?

• Are you delegating too much that requires executive judgment and/or creates high jeopardy of bad choices? Are you micro-managing your team where they don’t need your judgment?

People & Psychology

• Anxiety, Depression & PTSD: Panic is here, and so are triggers. Deploy crisis management, fear diffusion and palatable answers as assurances. Set up wellness resources.

• Target characteristics for new or returning employees: Is your new business plan best served by the same employees, and will they want to return?

• Motivation methodology: Understanding Maslow, ERG et al, are you properly leveraging what will motivate your next-phase employees? Will your workers win in your new plan?

• Remote work transitions: Is your transition to remote work working or does it need adjustment? Have you properly crafted your remote work policies? Are you isolating people who need more in-person teamwork? How will this change your keys to success?

• Listen, observe and encourage new opportunities for thought incubation and leadership. Six Hats, Appreciative Inquiry and constructive brainstorming are 3 tools we bring to change management.

Managing Risks, Liabilities & Compliance

• Know, communicate and consistently apply the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) and potential amendments.

• Minimize risks and perceived risks of contracting COVID-19 on “your watch” via screening for contagion, sanitizing and distancing, observing government directives as reasonable care, requiring PPE (within ADA/EEOC compliance), eliminating unnecessary travel and, of course, heightened care for the vulnerable population. Share your message and make your efforts visible and consistent.

• Comply with ADA, EEOC, HIPAA, OSHA and more without failure. Follow CDC rules for protection and diagnosis. Keep health information under medical privacy officer custody, shared only “need to know.” Now may be a good time to ramp up your medical officer’s training. Consistency is a strong protector against discrimination complaint.

• Template and “cookie cutter” handbooks likely need revision. Employee handbooks which are not updated and not customized to fit are jeopardizing fiscal prudence and hassle-free enforcement.

• Comply with changing compensation and benefits rules, including but not limited to EFMLA, EPSL, changing employee classifications/eligibility, payroll system calculations, time tracking for remote workers, medical certification definitions and enforcement.

• Remember that legal risks and laws shall be shaped by emerging court cases and statutory/regulatory changes. Confer with legal experts who can also be your affirmative defense expert witness.

Ollenburg LLC clients tell us our unique value is found in our ability to deliver affirmative defense, interpret statutory gaps, incorporate big-picture thinking and offer wide perspective of tactical experience during this time of rapid change. We suggest partnering with external subject matter experts for best planning, confidence and outcomes. Our perspective at Ollenburg LLC is everchanging with new findings, responses, regulatory changes and risks/opportunities. Daily extensive research is combined with decades of successful entrepreneurial experience. Thus far, we’ve been able to facilitate crisis management, business transformation, risk avoidance, bootstrap finance plays, key tactics and forecasting. We are uniquely able to provide court-approved affirmative defense to reasonable care, safeguarding our employer clients from noncompliance fines or lawsuits. We’re easing the burden of many, creating peace of mind and minimizing risk for today’s top employers, and this essay is a playbook for thought leadership at the highest executive level.