Interruptions and Introductions: How Effective Leaders Respond to Change

In March of 2020, schools and businesses around the world sent students, teachers, and non-essential workers home to calm the spread of the coronavirus. The gigantic General Motors plant in Kokomo, Indiana sat vacant and idle. Simultaneously, ventilators—the breathing machines necessary to keep critically ill COVID-19 patients alive—were in alarmingly short supply. Cars weren’t in demand, but ventilators were.

So, what did GM CEO Mary Barra decide to do?

She decided to take the interruption to business-as-usual and make it an introduction to a whole new way to serve people. She repurposed her plant.

TIME journalist Edward Felsenthal writes,

“Within a week of pausing the plant’s operations, Mary Barra launched it back into action, quickly transforming a dormant engineering building into an assembly line that delivered 30,000 ventilators in five months. Barra says the approach, incubated in the crisis of a pandemic is now a permanent cultural shift.”

As the GM plant learned how to create electronic ventilators, this enabled the entire staff to see what their CEO hoped they would see. They could pivot when they had to and find new ways to reach a goal. Now, that workforce is pushing to create and sell only electric vehicles by 2035. If they can generate electric breathing machines quickly, why not electric cars?

Becoming a Timely Leader in Times of Interruption

Barra is a case study on a new kind of leader that will be in fierce demand as time marches on. They can adapt quickly to needs and adopt new ways to meet those needs. They repurpose the resources and strengths they possess and pivot to remain relevant. They turn life’s “lemons” into “lemonade.” How does a leader do this? I suggest five initial steps below leaders can take to position themselves well.

Adopt a social cause for which you can invest.

Millions of workers are reassessing their priorities. How much time do they want to spend at the office? How do they want to spend their day and where? What kind of organization is attractive to them and furnishes meaning beyond the paycheck? Research suggests about 26 percent of employed people plan to search for new jobs once the pandemic is over. Millions expect the organization they work for to become leaders in social causes; issues that matter and make the world better. People want to make a difference not just make a living. They want to create change, not just create widgets. Leaders owe it to team members to identify a cause.

Stay nimble and adapt to interruptions.

Just like Mary Barra, we should embrace a crisis or a tragedy and ask ourselves: How can we use this to meet a new demand on the part of our community? Remember: influence rises based on providing the scarcest resource. When you adapt to the changing needs consumers have, you will increase the demand for your goods and services. When Joe McVicker saw that homes no longer needed his wallpaper cleaner (since coal heaters were giving way to electric furnaces), he turned his Kutal Product line into a toy kids could use in school: Playdough. He just added some color and repurposed his product into a relevant one that still sells to this day.

Clarify the problem and the goal.

It’s been said for years: the best teams fall in love with a problem not a solution. Why? Because big problems will constantly demand better solutions as time marches forward. Too often, our team can devolve into routines and forget the huge BHAG we’re pursuing—to equip 30 million young influencers to solve problems and serve people. When we begin with the end in mind, it helps us upgrade and update our methodology each year. Every day, I ask myself: If I continue in my current mode of operation, will I reach my big objective? I’ve found, when we connect our daily work with our huge vision, it incentivizes team members better than a bigger salary.

Determine each year how you’ll leverage smart technology.

Thanks to a lengthy quarantine, nearly every school is now a tech school; nearly every business, a tech company. Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, and other virtual platforms got familiar to everyone—and now, millions will not fully return to life before 2020. Good leaders push their teams to adopt the latest technology and automation, so they can add the human touch in other areas of consumer contact. It’s pretty clear—smart technology is not going away, and it will be used by your competitors to get ahead. Unless there is a moral reason for not leveraging it, I believe it’s wise to stay on the cutting edge so as to avoid becoming an organization that’s always a step or two behind, yelling, “Me too!”

Master speed-to-market.

The ability to pivot with interruptions does little good unless your adaptation happens quickly. Mary Barra spoke of her GM plant: “Now as we approach new projects, we say, ‘You know, we’ve got to go at ventilator speed because we know we have the capability to do that.’” Her point is, now that they’ve proven they can create a ventilator at a car factory in a matter of weeks, they no longer have the excuse to be slow. When the pandemic started, our non-profit saw mental health issues mounting in both students and educators. By August, we had released a book, The Pandemic Population, to address the issues. Speed to market made it timely.

I must admit, I struggle practicing what I’ve just preached. I get set in my ways and must force myself to constantly perceive “interruptions” as “introductions.” But I know it is right. If we’ll do this, we’ll enjoy the refreshing taste of life’s lemonade.