Covid-19 has created an environment of extreme uncertainty this year and forced many head coaches and club owners to wrestle with challenges they’ve never come across before. Many gymnastics clubs are facing another shut down even as we we appear to be inching ever closer to the roll-out of a vaccine.  The vaccine should enable governments around the world to take control of the virus and individuals to return to more ‘normal’ lives.

While a vaccine will hopefully reduce the pressure on organizations – and therefore on their leaders – it will not necessarily put an end to uncertainty. The social, economic and political reverberations of Covid-19 are likely to continue for years to come, creating new uncertainties for leaders to manage. 

How can YOU lead in an era when nobody knows exactly what will happen next? 

1.     Think through possible scenarios 

Two critical acts can help coaches and club owners faced with the kind of extreme uncertainty we’re experiencing at the moment.

• Developing a working point-of-view around possible futures. 
• Setting up practices and processes to feed that outlook. 

Too often, we feel the need to go to extremes: predict the future, or stay the course, and neither are really feasible. Leaders should collect and make sense of signals of change, share that sensemaking, and think through possible future scenarios. Creating the habit of regularly thinking about what’s next helps create a working ‘map’ of the future that can be valuable even in steadier times. 

Right now at my gyms, all of our competitions we have planned are virtual.  We could do these during regular practice times without any spectators. BUT- what would happen if somehow the season gets “rescued” and we have a Regional and National Championship? Will the gymnasts forget how to preform in front of an audience? SO- we have gone to smaller groups for the competition to allow their parents to come in as socially distanced spectators. We have NOT had parents in the building for any real period of time since March! Is it perfect? NO. But it is the best we can do for possible future. 

2.     Tap into your gym’s purpose

The first thing to do is ground your business in strategic clarity. Reaffirm who your gym exists to serve and why. Now is the time to revisit what makes your gym special – what gives you the ‘right to win’ in this new world?

The second step is to create an extraordinary leadership team – a strong, unified, genuinely collaborative team based on mutual respect and trust, which delivers shared objectives together. 

Next it’s key to ensure all leaders throughout the gym know how to lead successful change and that all your people are ready, willing and able to embrace it. 

3.     Start with a hypothesis

When you are choreographing a routine and the child doesn’t even know what kind of music they like- that’s really difficult to work with. You have no where to start and no idea where you are going to go.  Even at times of uncertainty, it is better to start with something – a hypothesis of what you think is achievable based on the evidence you have – and work from there. Uncertainty makes it even more important to test ideas before we invest huge amounts of resources. Find a relevant target group of people, customers who have been with you a long time, maybe some newer customers who have jounce since the pandemic started. Use structured eye-to-eye video interviews to gather evidence. Start small and then learn, repeat, iterate and expand your group size – the answers you collect will help you build a much clearer picture to support your hypothesis. 

4.     Undertake regular planning

Planning should not be a special, one-off event. It should be a very regular occurrence where your full time staff comes together to think through options and collectively agree the path forward. Plans should be updated with any emergent data, different viewpoints discussed, and trade-offs always made with the project objective in mind.

Remember that plans are hypotheses, not facts. Once you execute your plan, look at whether you are getting closer or further away from your objective, then assess your next best action. You can then rinse and repeat this process until your project outcome is successfully achieved.

5.     Don’t let uncertainty stop you moving forward

Never let a good crisis go to waste. What changes can you make that you were waiting for the “right time” to do? During this turbulent time, many coaches and club owners will find they actually have a chance to sit and explore some ideas. Create a full list of ideas, considering every possibility for change, and then pick two – one that gets you excited and one that feels scary.

The one that gets you excited will be easy to start and fill you with joy and positive energy – and that will, in turn, rub off on other areas of your life. The scary idea is also important, since it stretches you and gets you out of your comfort zone. When you achieve that goal, it will feel even more fulfilling than the easier ones. 

We tell our gymnasts all the time that, the only way to learn and get to the next level is to get out of your comfort zone. Why would it be any different for us? 

It’s not easy to lead when we don’t know what’s going to happen next. But then it’s not easy to lead – period. The great thing about leading in a time of great uncertainty is that it gives you more opportunities to experiment and take risks than you might get in steadier times. Don’t let those opportunities pass you by.

Adapted from How to Lead When Nobody Knows What Will Happen Next