Some Advice for those Managing the COVID-19 Crisis

I remember, quite clearly, when I first really understood that to solve complex problems you need to assemble and organize the right talent and then provide the leadership that both sets the course for the team and then manages that talent to produce good outcomes.  My epiphany came when I was called in to deal with a TPM {troublesome practice matter}.  TPM was a euphemism for a project that had gone off the rails.  As I worked my way through the issues that resulted in the delays, I couldn’t help but understand the importance of assembling the talent that collectively possessed the capabilities that is, of course, the raison d’être for the concept of a team.

My Firm had been working for 3 years on the automation of a key business process for an important multinational client.  Several times, as the project neared the end, the completion date would get pushed out.  The client lost patience and I (who was lucky enough to have just completed a multiyear project) was brought in to figure out what was wrong and fix it.

It was very clear that our client team cared, they understood the business process that they were tasked with automating, but they didn’t have the requisite expertise to build software that could deal with the complex processing reliably and perform at speeds that would be acceptable under normal business conditions.

I had seen this before, but never appreciated the seriousness of the issue.  Most often, when we had a crack technical team that did not know the first thing about the business processes that they were supposed to be automating, we figured we were smart people and could power through our lack of knowledge.  But in retrospect, that was wrong-headed thinking and horrendously inefficient.  This approach probably resulted in systems that worked like the client wanted but fell short of what we could have offered by bringing the right people onto the team.  Looking back, I am, even all these years later, embarrassed by our arrogance.

I close out this story by noting that it took me 2 years to right that ship.  The lesson I learned is that it is awfully expensive (we, of course, footed the bill) not to have the right expertise and leadership necessary to properly attend to the task at hand.

What does this story have to do with how our government is managing the current COVID-19 crisis?  The response to a situation as potentially devastating as a pandemic requires a great deal of expertise and a balanced multidimensional approach.  Specifically, I would suggest that there are 11 different, but necessary sets of expertise necessary to effectively manage this crisis:

• Medical—this is obvious.  We have sick people and we need the medical resources (people, facilities, equipment, etc.) necessary to properly care for the sick.
• Epidemiology—these are the folks who can help us understand the dynamics of how the virus spreads and develop strategies to limit its effect.
• Statistics and Data Science—a crisis like this generates an enormous amount of data.  The people analyzing the data need to be sure that they have the best data and that it is presented in ways that yield the best information.  Data scientists and statisticians help us do that.
• Change Management—there are a lot of scared people whose world has turned upside down.  The world has changed and the team handling this crisis needs help with strategies and programs designed to help the stakeholders (general public, business leaders, government leaders, religious leaders, etc.) to understanding these changes and their implications for what needs to get done.  This will ease the pain associated with changes (like social distancing and stay-at-home orders) that people must deal with.
• Communications—if you can’t connect with your stakeholders and effectively communicate, it doesn’t matter if you are doing everything else right.  Without effective communications, you are not going to be able to get everyone in line and on the same page—which is especially important when the crisis is fluid and the need for speedy action is essential.
• Procurement and Logistics—the size and scale of crisis that affects the nation means that material will have to be purchased and distributed.  And, this set of functions involves the acquisition, management and flow of material (e.g., PPE, ventilators, medication) between the point of origin and the point of consumption to meet the requirements of customers.
• Economics—after people’s health, the economic well-being of individuals and the companies that employ them is most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.  The economy is being devastated by the pandemic.  We need clear strategies and programs to mitigate the damage. 
  
  Managing the damage and setting the stage for an economic recovery requires a deep, practical understanding of business and economics.  That said, even with the most capable economists and business leaders participating, managing the economy is an inexact practice, which is why we need the most skilled practitioners bringing the best ideas to the table.
• Accounting—keeping track of the spend and making sure that, within the constraints imposed by the crisis, that money is being well spent.  Public trust is important, and while abuses will inevitably occur, we must maintain that trust by managing the results as well as possible.
• Information Technology—the size and scale of the pandemic can only be managed with first rate systems and information technology.  Unnecessary failures of systems (unemployment, stimulus payments, COVID contagion and death reporting) just adds to the chaos, uncertainty and fear associated with the crisis.  Poorly constructed systems get in the way rather than help.  So, first rate technology support is essential to a successful campaign against the pandemic.
• Project Management—I hope it is abundantly clear that there are a lot of moving parts.  The (sorry to repeat these words) size and scale of the challenge imply a response that needs a full time project management organization that is distributed (across geography and function), but tightly coordinated to ensure that the response is both effective and economical.
• Crisis Management—the best analogy that I can come up with here is that of General Eisenhower’s role during World War II– Supreme Allied Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force.  He was accountable to government leadership but was given oversight and control of all the resources necessary to win the war in Europe.  He had the expertise and competence to successfully accomplish the goal.  He was given the authority, responsibility and was accountable for the results.  And, he did his job.  Enough said.

I understand that much of what I have described, in terms of talent needed for the COVID-19 crisis, is in place in one form or another.  But the effort has been implemented in bits and pieces.  I would suggest that there are two strategic changes that would improve the efficacy of the response:

• The effort must be coordinated across all the functions outlined above.  I have learned during a long business career (much of which involved managing large complex projects) a piecemeal approach to this kind of effort does not lead to the best, or in many cases even good, outcomes.  In the absence of a team approach, insights made by one function are likely lost on the others, and even in the best of circumstances multiple teams are rediscovering the same information and probably not in a timely fashion; and
• There are economies that can be accrued by bringing all the best talent into one place and developing the frameworks (based on the best knowledge) that can be implemented in each State.  When I was at PwC we had the Methodology Team.  These folks were responsible for pulling together all the vast experience that our front-line teams accrued, identifying the best of the best and documenting it for all to use.  This leveraged our experience onto every project that we undertook.  The framework that worked for one client worked for another.
  
  Similarly, the framework that works for New York also works for New Mexico.  I spent much of my career working with clients to figure out where a generic solution can be applied and where a bespoke work-product works better.  And, this is one of the former.  The model and approach are generic, the inputs (population density, social distancing compliance rates, etc.) refine the solution and tailor it to individual situations.  This also effectively takes the politics out of the situation by developing a response that is based on the best knowledge and expertise.

That said, a well-run crisis management team builds trust that can save wasteful effort by demonstrating competence and thereby encouraging the states (actually all participants at all levels) to leverage the quality work product that the crisis management team has produced rather than reinventing the wheel or even worse ignoring the work altogether. 

Finally, it is late in the COVID-19 game to implement the crisis management framework outlined above, but there are elements that can be leveraged in the short term.  And, we should take note of these thoughts when preparing for the next pandemic and there will be a next one.  Having said all of this, if you choose to build a crisis management team, I strongly recommend the article: The Discipline of Teams ( https://hbr.org/1993/03/the-discipline-of-teams-2 ) and the book by the same title.  They provide time tested thinking on how to assemble and manage a high performing team!

Copyright 2020 Howard Niden
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