Don’t panic now!

Every company enters the crisis with different conditions. General, theoretical and practical advice as well as checklists for dealing with a crisis situation can be found nowadays pretty often on the market and on the web. But now it is important to look at the individual case and adapt the general knowledge. The HBM Unternehmerschule is intensively involved with these topics with some of their alumni and participants of the HBM executive programmes and with their personal mandates.

Experience shows that the following questions arise when analysing cases and developing solutions:

• Is the company active in an industry whose business activity has come to a complete shut down from one day to the next due to government bans?
• What governmental support can be demanded and requested?
• Has the company been able to build up a liquidity reserve in order to survive for 6 months without income, or was this not feasible at all due to the previous growth dynamics and margin situation? Where can the necessary liquidity come from?
• Can the short-time working allowance still be topped up by the company? Have cases of illness already led to a justifiable, even greater uncertainty among employees?
• Is it still possible to maintain management at the various levels and in the various areas of the company?
• How can trust be kept alive in the company and in the teams? Do the production processes and workplace organisation need to be redesigned?
• Have the new, digital forms of communication and work already been practiced or do they still have to be developed? Is the infrastructure already designed for this?
• Do the digital sales and communication channels with the customers also function under high load?
• How do you manage the balancing act between necessary personal and forced digital leadership while observing security precautions?
• How can employees’ (existential) fears be alleviated/reduced? How should internal and external crisis communication be structured?
• In very difficult cases: Are the cantonal and country-specific regulations of the insolvency proceedings known and do they open up options for restructuring if necessary?
• How can a possible delay in insolvency be prevented?
• What realistic scenarios are conceivable for the coming months, and what are the consequences?
• What dependencies exist with suppliers, partners and customers at home and abroad?
• Which contracts still have what value?

The Henri B. Meier Unternehmerschule seeks to link factual logic and socio-psychology in its executive education programmes and prepares this content for future and senior managers. Participants in executive education programmes at the Unternehmerschule are able to extend their leadership skills on the basis of their own professional competence with personality and social skills. This is exactly what is required in the current crisis situation. To make factually appropriate decisions on financial, personnel and strategy/process issues. In addition, the responsible handling and design of socio-psychological processes within the company and with employees is of particular importance.

The current extraordinary situation requires managers to think and act in a disciplined manner and to trust in their improvisation skills. It is important to reduce the emerging despair and fears of the future. The important thing at the moment is not to panic and make emotional, ill-considered decisions, but to make the best possible decisions for the employees and the company under this great uncertainty with a cool head, common sense and a stable basis of values.

The HBM School of Enterprise strives to find concrete answers to the entrepreneurial questions of the Corona crisis.