It's no secret COVID-19 (the Coronavirus) is causing a huge deal of uncertainty within companies across the globe. From the glaring financial and supply chain impacts to the less obvious cultural adjustments, there's a lot for business leaders to figure out.
With that in mind, I wanted to share how Gutwein Law is navigating the COVID-19 pandemic from an operations and cultural standpoint in hopes it could help some companies still struggling to find their feet.
We have a few hardcore Jocko Willink fans at the firm. If you haven't heard of him, he's a retired U.S. Navy SEAL Officer who shares leadership principles as an author, podcast host and on Twitter. Perhaps his most notable message (and appropriate for the situation we're all in now), is his encouragement to find the "Good" in all difficult situations.
This is a really easy, yet powerful exercise your team can do to help in shifting from a doom and gloom mindset. I'll give you a few examples of what we came up with:
PROBLEM: The coronavirus pandemic has had major health, financial, political, technological, and societal affects across the globe. There have been various shutdowns and slowdowns of businesses, millions of people are out of work, and there’s a large degree of uncertainty about the future.  This pandemic is causing: (1) a slowdown in certain segments of our business and our clients’ business, (2) creating uncertainty in the future impact on our business; and (3) disruption in our people being in the office together.
So What’s GOOD about this?
Some pretty good follow-up items came out of this exercise for us, as well, like this blog post. Go on, try it for yourself.
Generally, people don't often associate law firms with being on the forefront of innovation, but for us, that couldn't be further from the truth. Over the last few years, we've put a ton of resources and energy into our hardware and software systems -- searching, testing, and tweaking -- until our technology mix was just right. As a result of all this hard work, we didn't have to scramble for our team to have the ability work from home -- it was as simple as having our team members take their laptops home with them. We've continued supporting our clients uninterrupted during the COVID-19 pandemic.
To dive into this a bit more, here are some practices we've had in place to help make this transition as smooth as possible:
As you may have noticed, we've been working hard to stay-up-to-date on the latest COVID-19 news and information as it relates to businesses. Specifically, we have two attorneys at Gutwein Law who are dedicated to helping our clients find and navigate the solutions that work best for them.
Do you have someone on your team dedicated to helping your company guide you through the uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic? Â If not, you can always reach out.
As a lot of companies are finding out, being out of the office and away from coworkers presents other challenges beyond communication. Company culture can essentially disappear overnight if you're not careful and intentional about keeping it alive and well. That's why, we've taken special steps to make sure we're continuing to strengthen relationships and show our team members we care for them. For instance, we've held weekly virtual happy hours with a specific discussion theme, which have included:
In addition to weekly all-firm calls, we've also encouraged instant messaging through our video conferencing software as another less formal mode of communication. It helps to fill the void of those missed casual "water cooler" conversations in the office.
So that's it. A look at how our team is directly addressing some of the barriers presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. Have anything to add? Feel free to shoot us a message at info@gutweinlaw.com. We're always open to ideas.
