Leading through a crisis is never easy. When you’re constantly putting out new fires every day—sometimes every hour—it can be difficult to see beyond current challenges and plan ahead for recovery when the crisis is over.
But being able to see through the weeds and plan accordingly is crucial for surviving crises and thriving on the other side.
Although no one can predict the future, there are ways to prepare strategically so that you and your business are positioned for long-term success.
In a recent article, Gartner outlined a 3-phase framework for navigating the COVID-19 crisis successfully. This framework is a useful pattern for leading through any crisis with confidence.
The three phases are:
- Triage: The beginning of a crisis. It requires prompt action to lower operating costs.
- Doldrums: The threat levels off (e.g., cases stop increasing) and things are relatively quiet. This is a time for sustaining current initiatives and beginning growth investments.
- Recovery: Extraordinary measures are over, though budgets remain tight. Optimism rises, and there is higher investment.
One of the most difficult parts of managing a crisis is planning and acting on a vision for the future. Visuals can help leaders and their employees visualize plans, map their strategy, and communicate clearly.
In this article, we’ll walk you through the crisis management framework and how you can use visuals to drive efficiency, transparency, and collaboration during each phase.
Using visuals during the Triage phase
The “Triage” phase is the beginning of the crisis when you are still in a highly reactionary phase. You are putting out fires and constantly getting inundated with new information. This uncertainty and chaos leads to cutting costs and adjusting operations to conserve cash and reduce costs.
How to use visuals
The Triage phase is chaotic, and you will likely be upending many of your regular operations and processes to adapt. Visuals like org charts, current state vs. future state diagrams, and process workflows can help you map where you are, where you need to be, and how your organization will operate in the meantime.
Org charts are a simple but effective solution for understanding the structure of your business and how each role works together. Use org charts to map out your organization and hone in on high-priority roles, identify potential redundancies, and ensure all parts are working together.
Current state and future state diagrams outline your current and future processes and operations. In other words, they let you see where you are now and where you want to end up.
Comparing the two diagrams through as-is process analysis to identify what changes need to happen in order to reach that future state goal. This is an important tool during crisis management because you can more easily identify redundancies, inefficiencies, and gaps between your current processes and the future state of operations you’re trying to achieve.
Once you adapt your processes as needed, you can visualize your operations again in a new as-is diagram. Digitizing your new processes gets everyone up to speed on changes. Share your process diagrams with your stakeholders and employees so everyone is on the same page. Keeping your processes clear and transparent will ensure a smoother transition to new operating procedures through the crisis.
