The transition to remote work was abrupt, but some changes made during this time will be permanent. Read More
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Right now, we’re all dealing with uncertainty. As the pandemic continues into its fifth month, it’s hard to know what tomorrow will bring. To better handle the psychological stressors we’re facing, we have to get comfortable with the uncomfortable, says Jason Van Camp, author of Deliberate Discomfort: How U.S. Special Operations Forces Overcome Fear and Dare to Win by Getting Comfortable Being Uncomfortable.
As a former Green Beret commander, Van Camp trained soldiers to endure various scenarios under high-pressure situations. “The ultimate team is the military, and as a commander I had to lead forces into combat, which is filled with uncertainty,” he says. “What we taught them is that you have to pivot or you’re going to die.”
And dealing with uncertainty couldn’t be more relevant than it is right now with COVID-19, adds Van Camp. Leaders need to take steps to help their teams adjust.
Get to Know Each Member
The first step for leaders is to show the team that they care, which requires getting to know each individual. “Have intimate conversations, ask tough questions, find out their dreams and values, and their vision for the future,” says Van Camp, who trains corporate leaders on the mindset he learned during his time in the Army through his Mission Six Zero leadership consulting firm. “Employees need to know you care and that you want them to succeed. In the military, you hear the term, ‘We fight for the man to our left and to our right.’ That’s true, but why do we fight for that person? Because we know them.”
Too often in the corporate world, leaders say they’re a team, but their actions don’t always back that up. “If you don’t really know the person, why would you fight for them?” asks Van Camp. “That’s why you see a lot of employee retention issues and huge turnover rates. I tell leaders that now more than ever it’s important to have conversations to get to know the people on your team.”
Take Advantage of Remote Working Arrangements
It can seem like a more significant challenge to get to know your team if they’re working from home, but Van Camp says that’s not necessarily the case.
“It’s harder than ever, but it’s also easier than ever because we don’t have to coordinate a time to go get lunch, drive into a location, spend time away from your family or workplace,” he says. “It’s as simple as scheduling a 30-minute Zoom call or Google Hangout. You can build relationships online easily these days.”
Make It Safe to Share Concerns
Getting comfortable with the uncomfortable requires sharing your concerns. Leaders can help their teams open up by sharing their concerns first, says Van Camp.
“You have to be vulnerable and authentic and expose your heart,” he says. “If you do that first, it makes it safe for others to do the same. The vast majority of people can detect when you’re full of it and not being real, authentic, or truthful. That destroys the relationship, the culture, and your credibility as a leader.”
Then Listen
Once you make it comfortable for people to open up, resist the urge to jump in and help. Instead, show your people you care by listening. “When I was earning my Green Beret, my leader said, ‘Your success here at this unit is going to be determined by your ability to listen,’” says Van Camp. “Instead of solving problems or telling them your thoughts, sit back and just listen. When you do, don’t let your mind wander. Pay attention, and you can feel a relationship building.”
Gauge the Person’s Tolerance for Transparency
While you don’t want to hide information, you also don’t want to incite fear. Right now, leaders may not have all the answers or know what’s going to happen. But as soon as you catch a drift of something concerning, it may not be the best time to tell your team. Instead, wait until you get more information or more explicit guidance, says Van Camp.
“When a lot of things are unknown, transparency about what you do know is key. But how much you share depends on the individual,” he says. “Some people have a greater capacity or a higher bar for fear. They want to hear the truth. They don’t want it wrapped in a bow.”
But some people don’t do well with that, and they may start panicking or jumping to conclusions, which could be detrimental to the team.
“In the special forces, we operate in gray, nebulous, uncomfortable spaces where things aren’t black and white,” he says. “You have to understand who your people are and how they respond to the two main motivating factors: love and fear.”
Growth Is Uncomfortable
Becoming comfortable with the uncomfortable can be learned, says Van Camp. “I ask people, ‘What are you afraid of?’” he says. “What it comes down to is being afraid of the unknown—what they don’t see or understand. And I tell them, once you know something, you’re no longer afraid of it. It’s not the obstacle that you fear; it’s the unknown result of overcoming that obstacle. So you have to have the courage to willingly choose to confront that unknown, that fear, whatever it is, and head [it] off.”
Growth is not about living an easy life, Van Camp continues. “A life lived correctly should be lived in difficulty,” he says. “That’s how strong people are made. Unfortunately, society is teaching us the wrong thing right now. Instead of saying, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’ You should be saying, ‘If it ain’t broke, break it and make it better.’ We have to choose hard or they’re going to choose us.”
Zuleyka Strasner is one of those few business owners who saw her startup Zero Grocery grow during the COVID-19 pandemic. Strasner, Zero’s founder and CEO, says that the Bay Area-based delivery company grew by 200% week-over-week when stay-at-home orders were issued in California in mid-March. That the company aims to reduce waste from unnecessary packaging was a bonus for shoppers who didn’t want to risk exposure from reusable containers.
But to address the additional demand, Strasner had to hire more people—fast. Standing in the way of tapping a talent pool was the fact that many solid applicants also had criminal records. Fortunately, Strasner knew where to find a solution.
Back in December, she’d heard about R3 Score, a Baltimore-based tech startup founded by a Black mother-daughter team Teresa Hodge and Laurin Leonard. Hodge says Strasner “mentioned that roughly 50% of all applicants had some [sort of a record] and if she had greater context she could move forward.”
Currently, more than 73 million Americans have some sort of a criminal history, and that is expected to increase to more than 100 million over the next decade. “The FBI considers anyone who has been arrested on a felony charge to have a criminal record, even if the arrest did not lead to a conviction,” says Hodge. That averages out to be one out of every three citizens, according to Politifact.
Despite this, Hodge notes that most employers still run a background check on job candidates. “Roughly nine out of 10 employers run some version of a criminal report,” she says. However, when a report is returned to the employer and criminal history is present, employers don’t know what to do with this new information. “A candidate that was once in the selection process can suddenly find themselves disqualified based on something as minor as a booking several years prior,” says Hodge, who herself served a 70-month federal prison sentence for a nonviolent crime.
Background checks are a static snapshot of the past and do not take into consideration who a person is in the present.”
Teresa Hodge
Hodge says that even if you were convicted of a crime, it doesn’t automatically disqualify you from being able to be a great employee. In a paper she and Leonard wrote for the Harvard Kennedy School on mass incarceration, they state: “The phrase ‘if you do the crime, you do the time’ speaks to the core value that your time removed from society is the punishment, and upon release, you are to be restored into good standing.” But imagine your career still hanging in the balance of a checked box on an application that asks: Have you ever been convicted of a crime? “Background checks are a static snapshot of the past and do not take into consideration who a person is in the present, let alone how legitimate or justified their ‘criminal record’ may be.”
The goal for building R3 Score, as Hodge sees it, was to provide detail and context for employers to make a more informed decision. Otherwise criminal records can shut a talented person out of a job (or from getting a checking account or a lease) for even the slightest offense. You could see how this would cut the chances that a formerly incarcerated individual could make their life stable and become self-sufficient. And without that stability, recidivism is more likely. Currently, two out of three people are arrested again within three years of getting out of prison and more than half are incarcerated again. Longitudinal studies suggest that steady employment is related to a significant reduction in criminal behavior and lowers recidivism rates.
R3 Score works like a financial analysis tool to provide more accurate assessments of an individual’s background. A proprietary algorithm taps numerous data sources including open civic data, criminal background databases, and other sources and methodology that Hodge says “are a part of our or ‘black box.’” R3 Score then spits out a more nuanced, comprehensive picture of a candidate’s background along with a number that looks like a credit score (ranging from 300-850), so the employer can assess the risk of hiring that person.
Hodge says there are up to 11 factors that go into that black box. The risk model is strengths-based, and she says that while traditional variables like work and education can impact a score, R3 Score looks at other indicators that show a person has been consistently committed to their own future and the well-being of their community.
The cost varies per employer. Hodge didn’t disclose how many companies are using R3 Score, instead focusing on the value of offering a product that served to make the workforce more equitable. “We can’t just look at offense types to understand who should or should not get access to an opportunity today,” Hodge says. “Black, brown, and Native people are often overcharged with crimes. . . . But even something as seemingly innocuous as your zip code can result in disproportionate attention from prosecutors and judges when it comes to charges and sentencing.”
She points back to the disproportionate number of Black and brown people impacted by the U.S. criminal justice system. As a result, she says, these candidates are more likely to be harmed by a traditional background check. R3 Score can give BIPOC candidates “a leg up being assessed with us versus traditional tools,” she says.
Like any background check, the applicant needs to opt-in. “When our business customers order a new score and report they release the name and contact information of the candidate to be assessed,” explains Hodge, noting that R3 Score begins with a standard background check, so they are legally required to get candidate’s permission.
That said, it’s important to remember that criminal reports can be very subjective based on what a prosecutor or judge allows. “There is so much inconsistency with charges that employers can’t rely on that as an additional metric for vetting candidates,” says Hodge noting that 10 people with the same criminal circumstances could all be charged and sentenced differently.
She says that while individuals who are convicted more serious offenses generally have a more challenging time getting back on their feet, the data shows that they are generally less likely to reoffend. “Some decision-makers will not want to source from this talent pool,” Hodge admits, no matter how well it works. Yet she says that many employers tell her privately that the people they hire with criminal records are some of their best employees.
Strasner, who is still adding to Zero Grocery’s gig workforce, agrees. “This is a highly capable, untapped labor force who is ready to work and is actively looking for opportunities,” she says. She believes R3 Score will be useful long after the pandemic. “This is not merely a COVID stopgap measure for us; it’s something we’re incorporating into our business for the long-term.”
“Hi Will, not sure you will remember me, but you were the first to teach me about white privilege in a way that made me understand it didn’t matter how disadvantaged my background, the color of my skin opened doors that were closed to BIP…
As a result of the pandemic, we’re all on an unprecedented emotional and economic rollercoaster, and there’s no telling when the ride will end. The only thing that is consistent about managing a business in the midst of this pandemic is the volatility.
Today’s ups and downs are bigger, but the curving shape—peaks of hope, followed by valleys of despair—is familiar to anyone who has worked at a startup or participated in any bold venture, where one day’s breakthrough seems almost destined to be followed by a demoralizing setback.
Startup founders and leaders of big new projects must find ways to lead through those peaks and valleys. Before becoming chief product officer at Adobe, I founded and steered the ship at Behance, a bootstrapped startup that went through numerous ups and downs before becoming the network of more than 21 million creatives it is now. I’ve also interviewed dozens of startup founders and other leaders about the challenges of leading through uncertainty. Here are a few lessons I’ve learned that can help us lead teams and products amid the pandemic’s volatility.
Accept uncertainty
We all desire some level of predictability, a general sense of what tomorrow, next week, or next month will bring. That certainty is one of the main things the pandemic has taken from us.
But trying to manufacture certainty can lead us to bad decisions, points out Emre Soyer, a behavioral scientist at Ozyegin University in Istanbul. It can cause us to put too much faith in one study, or one expert, just to have an illusion of control. “We need to be skeptical about claims made with certainty and strive to have a clear and objective understanding of inherent uncertainties,” Soyer says. “Wisdom doesn’t emerge from knowing with certainty, but from being aware of your level of uncertainty.”
As a leader, it’s tempting to claim more certainty than you have to reassure your team. But in times like these, you’re not fooling anyone. It’s better to focus on the things you can control and acknowledge the things you can’t predict. Talk about it openly with your team. Be willing to let time add resolution to the pending decisions that still feel unsteady (as someone who deeply values and favors decisiveness, this is a constant struggle for me). By tolerating uncertainty, we open up to creative experiments and ideas. We let our minds bake better solutions.
Avoid decisions based from fear
“Will I make payroll?” “Will my company’s market ever rebound?” The drumbeat of scary questions like these can prompt radical and sometimes ill-considered decisions.
During the early days of Behance, we had periods of fear and doubt when competitors launched new features or the market seemed to shift. Sometimes, the fear caused us to scramble and churn our roadmap to follow our competitors.
But in almost all cases, these reactions based in fear proved to be shortsighted. Sooner or later (often after a few months), we would return to our convictions, informed by our mission and unique perspective.
Before you decide to pivot your company, copy a competitor’s feature, or chase a new market, revisit your core convictions and assertions.
Do you still believe that what you’re building will improve your industry? Do you still accept the core assumptions that have informed the decisions you’ve made and the people you’ve hired?
Your mission—and these core beliefs—are your compass. If you no longer believe your compass is pointing you in the right direction, by all means make changes. But if you believe your mission and your core convictions are fundamentally valid, don’t let fear push you off course.
Use this time to become more efficient
Startups, by definition, don’t have much of a status quo. They’re starting from scratch, which makes it simpler for them to try new tools and processes and discover what works. This an experimental phased that larger companies typically struggle with. They may pilot new technologies or ways of working, but the rewards are limited by two factors: holdouts, people resistant to change, and organizational debt, a failure to fully commit to new technologies and workflows.
The pandemic, though, means that no one can retreat into the comfort of the status quo. Nothing works as it did in January; nearly everything we do has had to change. That gives companies of all sizes the opportunity to realize all the potential productivity gains they’ve been stockpiling but not taking full advantage of. Companies like Alibaba and Google are expanding the use of drones to make the ultimate in contactless deliveries. Nike is producing online exercise classes to boost demand for its workout gear. In less than a week, Sysco, the big food-distribution firm, built an entirely new supply chain and billing system to serve grocery stores.
It’s a great time to bring the holdouts on board, eliminate the organizational debt, and fully adopt the new tools and processes that will make your company more efficient.
Hack the reward system
In many businesses, the pandemic has disrupted the usual ways we measure success. But as human beings, we still need the high we get from achievement. So it’s important to set ourselves and our teams up to score wins.
Establish milestones and find creative ways to celebrate when you achieve them. So long as the milestones you establish are pushing you in the right direction, they help provide the short-term rewards humans require.
In the early years of Behance, before we had much by way of customers, revenue, or traffic, we had fun setting directional goals and making games to keep us engaged. We would set goals, like getting to our first 100,000 members, and the team would make bets and agreements for what would happen at each of these milestones. Memorably, I even broke my stream as a life-long vegetarian when we hit the 100,000 mark. The display I put on for my team wasn’t a reward in a traditional sense, but it motivated my team.
Through your difficult times have some fun “hacking” your team’s reward system. Success releases dopamine that helps your brain remember that feeling of achievement and continue to strive for more. And games keep us engaged, and one of a team’s greatest competitive advantages is simply sticking together long enough to figure things out.
Tell your unique story
The pandemic has us all on a journey through uncharted territory. Our typical landmarks are gone, and we’re not even sure where we’re going. The process drains morale.
As a leader, your job is to provide a compelling and realistic narrative that merchandises progress. What does last week’s achievement set us up to do in the future? What are we learning from our challenges and how is the struggle benefiting us? A great example comes from Anne Wojcicki, CEO of personal genome analysis company 23AndMe.
In 2013, the Food and Drug Administration ordered the company to stop marketing its service. It took two years for 23AndMe to address the FDA’s concerns, but during that time, the company lost very few employees. “I would go around the company and remind people, ‘We’re on the right side of history,’” Wojcicki told me. “It was a matter of our first path being wrong, never our mission being wrong.”
As a leader, you have to figure out the story of what your team is going through and where that story leads, then you have to tell the story over and over so that your team can tell it to themselves and honestly feel like they are making progress.
The pandemic’s extreme volatility has unsettled even the most established companies and no one’s success is guaranteed. But finding ways to optimize the peaks and endure the valleys will give you and your team the best chance to not just survive but thrive.
Scott Belsky is the chief product officer of Adobe. He founded Behance and wrote The Messy Middle: Finding Your Way Through the Hardest and Most Crucial Part of Any Bold Venture.
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