Drax Webinar: How best to support the leadership team through the multiple challenges arising from Covid-19.
Hosts:
Tom Cross, Head of Leadership, Drax Executive
On Wednesday, May 20, Drax held another one hour “Chatham House Rules” round table for Private Equity Chairs to discuss the learnings so far from the crisis, what have been the successes, as well as how to further support the management teams and PE houses in the future as we look beyond the crisis.
An interesting article for reflection here, with some interesting points below:
- “Ironically leaders with the strongest track records are often more susceptible to fear during tumultuous periods because they have less experience facing adversity than their colleagues with more checkered pasts do.”
- “Especially during tough times, they (Chair / CEO) must go to even greater efforts than usual to unearth the fears that they can’t quite articulate or don’t feel safe enough to reveal.” (Psychological safety zone)
- “Breaking down a problem into bite-sized pieces (what Weick calls small wins) calms people and helps them take constructive action.” (Small wins strategy)
- “Helping executives verbalise their emotions and acknowledge their validity can allow them to move past fear and become more productive. Putting fear on the table, so to speak, helps get it out of the way.”
- “Because many professionals are almost always successful at what they do, they rarely experience failure. And because they have rarely failed, they have never learned how to learn from failure.”
A copy of the key learnings from the discussion can be found here.
