Crisis Resources for Business Leaders

Tell me one person in a leadership role who doesn’t feel like this from time to time. Palais de Rumine, Lausanne, Switzerland. January 5, 2019

For the people leading companies and businesses and teams right now, the stress of a crisis like the coronavirus or COVID-19 drama has an entirely different aspect than it does for many other people. (No less and no greater than others’ stress, don’t misunderstand me. Just a different flavor of stress.)

The FrogDog team compiled a few important resources into a special crisis resource center on the company website. I’ve written a few posts here on this site as well—personal posts from the perspective of a small business owner—that could help others facing leadership during difficulty.

In the spirit of doing what I can, even in the smallest of ways, I’ve put together the following lists of links and resources from my archive and from the FrogDog crew that I hope can help anyone in a leadership role in business better navigate these challenging times.

How to Shift Business and Marketing Strategy in a Crisis

How can you adjust your company’s strategy and plan for growth during this upheaval? How can you preserve and redirect your resources so that you can come out ahead in the long run?

• How to Change Your Marketing in a Crisis

• How to Market in a Self-Isolated World

• Marketing in a Down Economy

Best Practices for Leading Distributed Teams

FrogDog moved to a distributed workforce structure in 2018. Everyone has worked from wherever for quite some time now—and certainly longer than most of the people who’ve had to move to an entirely new work format during this crisis.

In hopes of shortening your distributed-workforce learning curve, here’s how we did it, what we learned, and the best practices we discovered.

Also, for leaders sweating the restructure, here’s some information that might quiet your concerns just a bit: Research and analysis shows teams are actually more effective in a distributed-workforce structure.

• The Distributed Workforce: Benefits and Caveats

• How to Transition from In-Office Teams to Remote-Work Teams or a Distributed Workforce

• Best Practices for Structuring and Managing Distributed Workforces

• Survey Says: Virtual Employees Have Higher Engagement

• How Companies Benefit from Distributed Work

• Ideas for Online Team Building

Also, you can visit this page for a full review of articles I’ve written about the distributed-workforce structure.

Leadership During Change

Leaders really struggle right now. The business literature on leadership will undoubtedly fill up with case studies on this crisis after it’s all over—and that doesn’t help anyone at this exact moment.

Here are a few articles I’ve written on my leadership experiences when it comes to change:

• Making Change Not Change

• People Hate Change

• The People Puzzle

• Likeability and Being Liked: The Difference

Diversions for Companies and Teams During the Crisis

We all need some distraction right now, even when business feels like it needs all our attention. Also, our teams could use a few diversions and culture-building activities, even while working remotely. How about a videoconference company book club, by chance?

• The FrogDog Team’s List of Recommended Business Reads

• Business Books: My Favorites

• The FrogDog Team’s List of Stuck-at-Home Diversions

Other Crisis Leadership Resources to Come

As other articles hit my radar or get published on this magazine or FrogDog’s magazine and crisis resource center, I’ll add them to this post.

Meantime, stay safe, take deep breaths, and wash your hands.