Finding and Delivering the Pathway Through Covid-19

There are 5 clear steps to take to get your company on a clear pathway and keep it there.

1.Review- All current threats / issues/ opportunities

Executive team need to collaborate and using their collective knowledge of the marketplace and the business itself to carry out an extensive review of the current status.  If time is not invested in this, then the solution will only be a “sticking plaster”. This team should know the business better than anybody else and therefore best placed to complete this review.

OUTPUT: Executive team working together with a sound understanding across the entire business as well as common goals

2.Risk Assess – perceived / actual /opportunities, and agree priorities

Define and document all the risk across the business, this helps Directors to “download” and then separate perceived risk from real risk as well as identifying new opportunities. Through team discussion the risks are graded, “severity of risk”, and “chance of risk” and this allows the team to establish and agree the most critical risks. Open and honest discussions are required and there will be some difficult conversations to be had. These risks will be at 3 levels- Critical need immediate action, Medium risk but can wait until critical are addressed, Nice to have which can wait until the other categories have been addressed

OUTPUT: Creation of a live Leadership Risk register, and a focused team. Helps the team to understand each other’s perspective and the wider picture of the business.

3. Evolve Action Plan

Now the team are collaborating and understand exactly what needs to be done, they need to define

• What needs to be done?
• Who is going to do it?
• When it is going to be done by?
• How progress is to be monitored and fed back to the team?

OUTPUT: An agreed action plan with clarity which can easily be communicated to others.

4. Monitor Performance

This is a significant area of strategy implementation and where it most often falls down

It is important to pre-define key performance indicators i.e. measurables that will demonstrate progress, or lack of it. They must be “achievable”, “realistic” and easily “measurable” otherwise they will simply not happen.

Monitoring allows the team to easily see when things are slipping so they can take action to bring it back on track, or if the relevant task has been completed then it can be signed off and the team move to the next task/project

OUTPUT: a clearly defined and agreed strategy which is tracked and adjusted as actions are taken and the world continues to change

5. Review Updated Threats

The original risk assessment document is a “live” register and needs to be regularly reviewed, in normal times this could be quarterly, but as the world is changing rapidly the review needs to be more frequent. Identified risks are removed once the agreed actions have been completed but new risks are added as they appear.

OUTPUT: creates agility in the business with the ability to see quickly and react to an ever-changing environment

For further information contact Elizabeth on 07365 517481 E:  ejp@ejplimited.co.uk or visit www.ejplimited.co.uk