Kay:
Okay, family, we’re here in the last installment of tough stuff week and today we’re talking about something that, frankly, I kind of wish we had less experience in because we’re talking about crisis leadership.
Shi:
We were the active leaders of a restaurant company for almost a decade as the active leaders. We were part of the restaurant leadership and management for 19 years, and we still are leadership to some extent because we’re co-chairs of the board and we work closely with the CEO. But now we have that CEO who is really the active leader of the restaurant business. But let us tell you, in those 19 years of leadership in the restaurant space, and then in a marketing agency, and in personal growth and development company, among many other projects and partners, we’ve seen a lot of crises, obviously none bigger than the pandemic. That was every crisis combined so we’ll touch on that in a second. But just talking about crisis leadership, in general, is something that I think, unfortunately, you only learn through experience and absorbing and learning from others experiences as well.
Kay:
Now, crisis leadership isn’t isolated to the business environment. Oftentimes a family can come into crisis. A difficult situation can come forward within a friend group and people have to take leadership, take ownership, and find a way to navigate through it. So, crisis leadership is not only to the organizations or communities that are led from an official capacity but also from more social constructs, like a family.
Shi:
That’s a really good shade to bring forward and I’m so glad you did and you think about when you’re having one of those really serious moments with your significant other, or if you’re a younger audience listener when you’re having that serious moment with a parent. When one person in that relationship takes a leadership and ownership stance and takes control in a constructive way, it changes the whole outcome of the conversation. We’ve all been in it where no one steps up and both people protect themselves, and jab for each other, and go for the pain, and that isn’t what we’re talking about when it’s productive. But even in those relationship interactions that you might call a crisis in a relationship when there’s strong leadership in place, it can make the difference between success and failure.
Kay:
Shila and I like to call this MIHI energy which stands for Move I’ll Handle It. When somebody comes forward in the relationship and says, “Move, I will go forward and handle it,” and kind of that physical expression of pushing someone out of the way, stepping forward into what is the fray of whatever the crisis is at that time. But anyone who steps forward with MIHI energy in the time of crisis becomes the natural leader. But boy is MIHI energy helpful when you’re in pretty much any form of crisis situation.
Shi:
Out of the 100 people one of them gets MIHI energy and says, “Move, I’ll handle it,” and they walk to the front, and they take charge, and they start calling shots from the front of the line. All other 99 people are grateful, are relieved, are ready to serve and maybe they don’t always necessarily agree with the decisions, but we’re talking about crisis leadership. Something active is happening in front of us. Something is unfolding in the present moment and influence and decisions need to be made right now. That’s that kind of crisis leadership. So, let’s talk about our biggest crisis leadership mode which was the pandemic. And we’ve said in lots of interviews that you could take all of our experience from the 17 years before pandemic, and it would pale in comparison to the two years of restaurant ownership during the pandemic. There was so much crisis on so many different layers that being leaders through that..the one thing that I came out of that saying was, “Thank goodness I wasn’t alone.” I was so glad I got to lead alongside you, Kay, and to have somebody that we could just have our trust tree together and that partnership really saved me as an individual and I know you feel the same way. So, we were really lucky, and a lot of people don’t have that.
Kay:
Yeah, there were occasions where we needed each other’s MIHI energy, or we would be strong in front of the team and leading from a place of strength and knowing and then get on the phone afterward and crumble in confidence. Let’s just take you back to March 17th of 2020, where overnight 85% of the revenue of our restaurant company completely went away, like gone. 85%. Now, if that was a one-week thing, we probably would’ve recovered very easily, but it wasn’t. It was a 12-week endeavor of that 85% loss in revenue. But that didn’t mean that the $65,000 bill to US Foods went away. That didn’t mean an 85% drop in our rent payments or our bills or an 85% drop in our labor force. We had to figure out how we could keep the lights on, keep our people employed and not lose our family legacy in the process.
Shi:
Now, I want to make sure that we clarify we’re humongous believers in being vulnerable and authentic in front of the team and so they knew that we had a level of, I think, severe focus on the outcome and could feel that intensity from us as their leaders. But what we didn’t want to show them was any kind of wavering in confidence or that we were despairing on behalf of them because we felt this immense and tremendous responsibility for the 200 families that rely on our businesses. We liked to say we wanted to be hopefully realistic and realistic and hopeful, and we wanted to have our realism be the peanut surrounded by chocolate in the middle of the peanut M&M so that we could have that hope and keep it going forward.
But it was important when everyone was scared for us to have that MIHI energy. I really think when I reflect back, those last two weeks of March, I had that energy. I was like, “We’ve got this, no problem. The whole world’s dealing with this,” but April for me is the darkest timeline. April 2020, there were just some really desperate days in there where our numbers were dismal, our bills were mounting. The certainty was at an all-time low in terms of any kind of financial government help and restaurants were dropping left and right. So, the question marks were so severe that it was hard to get through that and we just would lean on each other quite a bit during that while trying to maintain a lot of open communication with our team and help keep them bolstered and working towards good projects.
Kay:
Well, any leader within a crisis or any leader in a difficult situation–while yes, vulnerability is a good thing to display and to have with your team–if you’re in the middle of a crisis or a difficult situation, so are the people that you’re leading. So, giving them the burden of your emotions to bear in addition to the crisis can end up being unconstructive for everyone. Thinking about even leading our kids. Shi, your kids had a front-row seat to the drama of American entrepreneurship during the time of that crisis leadership and there were oftentimes where they would see your tears, but then you knew that they would have to hear your hope as well because they were afraid.
Shi:
They were. I’m sure you’re reflecting back on where you were during those months of March and April 2020 and all of us had to be leaders in our families or in our companies, or within our communities in different ways. Of course, we could do an hour-long episode about all the ways the pandemic changed our leadership approach and shifted our perspective around it. But really coming out of all of the crisis leadership moments, we’ve identified the fact that it’s helpful to have someone have that MIHI energy, Move I’ll Handle It. Even if it’s not always that you know what to do, you’re certain that you will do it and you will step up. That can make the real difference.
The other is being committed to seeing the result at the end of the tunnel and we laugh about an interview during those dark timeline months where the newspaper editor asked us, ”How long can you handle this?” And we kind of hairbrained said, “As long as it takes!” with desperation. But holding so much determination in our voices and having that level of determination can be the real difference maker. So, we hope you’ve enjoyed this rough, tough, rumble week here on the Kay & Shi Show. We sure enjoyed sharing with you some of our harder moments and more vulnerable spots.
Kay:
We hope that you’ve gained some value through hard conversations, negotiating, motivation blocks, and crisis leadership and we look forward to seeing you next week here on the Kay & Shi Show. Thanks, everybody.
