Action

“I don’t have the answers,” admitted the new CEO, at many junctures. “And I’m just going to say that. Because it is true, and none of us have ever encountered this. But I also know that we will emerge from this even stronger. We’ll figure this out together, as one.” An Excerra principal served as the senior communications expert on a small task force that initially included only the CEO, COO and head of HR, as well as top in-house experts in healthcare and crisis management. “We started from scratch – informed by the playbooks of past crises and our comparable experiences but innovating ‘at the edge of the envelope,’ over and over again. We relied on our instincts as business and communications leaders and on the principles of honesty, integrity and empathy. We also believed it was very important to think through issues from the many differences in risks, perspectives, levels of concern and local conditions that were changing hourly for our people across the world, faster than we could track.”

Impact

Over 60+ days – the initial announcement of layoffs, furloughs and a percentage salary cut shouldered equally by every employee – the team managed “through the trough,” shared the ups and downs in core business metrics, and provided a near-continuous stream of communications that informed and reassured the entire company, up to and through the resumption of salaries in June and a gradual return to stability. Over this period, the CEO received hundreds of responses from across the company – emails, phone calls, and third-party comments shared with other leaders. Even after discounting these for “let me tell the CEO what he wants to hear,” this feedback was overwhelmingly positive, including reactions from employees with no reservations about openly criticizing the executive team in the past.