“It’s like the whole world just took a deep breath, and nobody knows when to exhale.”
That’s what I wrote in my journal on 14 March, 2020; the day we took everything we knew about business, strategy and development and threw it in the filing cabinet. Almost two years later and Tasmania is back where the rest of the world has been this whole time, grappling with mandates and isolations and trying to find a way to keep life moving.
So how does one manage an organisation in the midst of such circumstances? How do you make decisions when the foundational information changes constantly? How do you balance what is logical with the lies that fear will breed? How do you continue to exist when it seems your ability to make enough money to survive has the potential to threaten someone else’s? How do you convey to clients a sense of security when everyone knows that’s a story we can’t sell?
Sometimes I feel like there’s this constant decision-making tension of grinding uphill tugging a millstone on a rope, all the while trying to decide whether it’s better to pretend it’s not there and keep on trudging, or to stop, turn around, assess how heavy the thing is and what kind of scientific approach is required to reduce the drag. We all know it’s there, so there is no benefit to sitting down discussing the fact that it exists. This is what we’re stuck with right now, and we can waste a lot of time and energy lamenting that reality. On the other hand, we can give it a measure of our focus and attention and see if there is some way we can minimise the impact, or even turn it to our advantage. This is a great plan, until the tilt of the land shifts and we find ourselves facing East instead of North and we have to start all over again.
So what are some of the challenges we have faced during COVID19 pandemic, and what are some things we have learned?
1. Manage for the outcome, not just the moment
I’ll never forget that day in March 2020 when the phone started to ring, and within an hour we had lost 25% of our annual income due to COVID. I only remember little snippets of conversation as we initially tried to make suggestions of revising options, only to be kindly informed that these were decisions that had no room for negotiation or revision. The impact of fielding concerns and attempting to answer the multitude of uncertainties was numbing. Right from the start, however, I had a sense that we needed to focus on preserving our business relationships for when COVID was over, and not let our actions in the crisis cripple our success for the longer future.
We spent significant amounts of time liaising with clients, checking in on how they were going and attempting to provide what support and empathy we were able. Negotiations were complicated as clients were caught between governing bodies and individual needs, which put many groups between a rock and a hard place. We technically had the right to
enforce our cancellation policy in order to help cover our short-term needs, however this would come at the risk of undermining our relationship with that school or organisation and make it less likely that they would come back in the future. Despite the challenges of the short term, we learned to never sacrifice the long-game for the sake of the next roll.
2. Focus on what we can do, not on what we can’t
In the thick of 2020, we were fortunate to benefit from JobKeeper which covered our staff wages, however with no clients onsite we didn’t have meals to prepare or activities to run, and so the focus for all staff had to change. The key question we kept asking was, what can we do right now that will bring us out of this period in the best possible position, so that when we reopen we have the best looking site that is ready to go, and provide the best possible experience for our future clients. We were fortunate to have the backing of an amazing network of supporters who donated towards various projects to supply the materials for our staff to complete. This gave us the ability to invest into the future of Camp Clayton, and gave our staff meaningful work to focus on.
We also had the opportunity to work on some systems and processes which are always important but difficult to refine in the midst of busy schedules. Though not always the most exciting things to do, they are what keep an organisation’s momentum and so we looked for ways to invest into our future operational efficiencies. Thus we learned that there is a lot more that we can do than what we can’t do.
3. Make broad level plans and hold off on the detail
In the early days we spent a lot of time coming up with detailed contingencies, only to have information change which disqualified all of the work we had done. After falling into this trap a few times we started to draft concepts at a broad level and then hone the detail as we were able to implement them. This meant we might have four or five options that would have the potential to work, but we would wait until we knew which direction we were able to proceed before we would invest a lot of time in the detail. This had the additional benefit of meaning that we were able to maintain a focus on overarching objectives which prevented us from being sucked in to controversies that made decision making very difficult. The lesson was to keep the objectives in the forefront of our discussions, and let the details develop along the way.
4. We’re all in this, let’s do it together
If there is one thing we have realised in the latter half of COVID, it’s that we may all be in the same stream but we are most definitely not in the same boat. When the discussion about vaccinations first arose, one of our Board members made the observation, “There is an army forming on each side.” Any group of diverse individuals will have to face the reality of opposing perspectives, experiences and opinions, and the challenge became finding a path that would maintain unity and mutual support rather than opening our staff up to becoming divisive or divided. This meant seeking each other’s perspective and hearing what
each person’s concerns were. In reality, we all want to make it through this season, and keeping focused on the bigger picture and who we want to be as a team in a post-pandemic time means we keep sight of the fact that people matter, and we must never lose sight of people for the sake of controversy over the information we have in this given moment.
On the one hand, we’re all facing similar challenges and there’s no sense of ‘my situation is worse than yours’. Here in Tassie, where closed borders have kept us operating since July 2020, we are so fortunate to have been able to not only survive but to continue our progress on our mission to reach young people for Christ. We continue to battle through the fear and uncertainty, but if there is any one thing I have learned from managing a not-for-profit through COVID it is that people matter, and sickness and fear are not a good enough reason to stop investing in people.