Under the public gaze, by Catherine Cross

I have a huge degree of empathy with those who are currently trying to manage their Covid-19 response, particularly in government departments. The management of unprecedented and uncontrolled demand, handling the pressure exerted by the media and politicians, keeping your teams motivated and ensuring that difficult decisions have clear logic and are properly documented requires dextrous juggling from minute to minute. All this at a time when you might be feeling out of your comfort zone and are anxious about the overall situation. Hopefully I can offer some useful pointers to assist with your own response.

Some years back I was asked to do a three day review of the processing challenges facing a new Government service. Backlogs had already started to build. Three days turned into three weeks. Three years later and I was still there. Take it from me, there was a LOT to do.

Watching the problems unfold was like watching a train crash in slow-motion. As the backlogs increased, so did media and ministerial attention. Frenzied media reporting led to a knee-jerk response from Ministers, and new and unexpected guidance was issued. The service, overnight, was deluged, straining every part of it and we were front page news for the next six weeks.

Getting on top of the backlog was the first problem. Increasing the output at one point in the process would inadvertently create a bottleneck elsewhere. Some of the other key considerations included:

• IT and Operational change needed to be carefully thought through and sequenced
• New performance regimes needed to be managed
• New resource sourced and trained
• Multiple stakeholders with differing drivers

These all needed to be taken into consideration so that the sum of the parts ended up being greater than the whole. However, by far the biggest challenge was managing the multiple requests for progress updates (for a time to feed PM’s questions in The House).

So, with the benefit of hindsight and some years grace, here are my top tips for managing through a time of crisis.

Create a Forecast of Performance

Create and make visible a concise set of reports that show daily, or weekly, performance against forecast. This will almost immediately stop the multiple requests for information. Base the forecast on a set of reasonable assumptions. You certainly won’t know all the answers, particularly about latent and unmet demand, no one will. This should clearly outline those elements of the service that are within your control and how the activities in your plan are making a difference.

If external and unknown factors emerge, and they will, analyse and explain the potential impact on the forecasted performance and at what point you will be back on track. This should give everyone a feeling that the issues are being managed, that there is a level of control and that you know what you are doing.

In putting the forecast and plan together, bring in people from the frontline as well as the senior team. You need to ensure that any plan is workable – no one can afford to make false promises at the moment. The forecast should be underpinned by a resource plan. It is critical that this outlines and aligns accountabilities and responsibilities. Impact assess every change you want to make in the way you are working against this forecast to determine if it has a positive or detrimental effect.

If they are not Helping, they are Hindering

You probably know who these people are already, they burn time and energy. Get them out of the way – do it now.

Also, get people around you that you know and trust and whose behaviour and response under pressure you already know. Deal with the HR fall out later.

Keep Good Records

You will need audit trails of all decisions, so ensure the governance and PMO are making good notes with the right level of information. There will be enquiries that follow, so you will need these records.

Public Good, Private Bad?

You may find yourself managing the public/private sector divide. Really try to understand the drivers of each party, no matter which side you are on. There’s not really good or bad – just different, so be honest with each other.

Setting and Managing Expectation

Resist the pressure to give definitive answers when there aren’t any. Better to have, and be able to explain, your plan to get to the answer and state when the definitive answer can be given. No one wants any surprises, including and especially politicians.

Single Version of the Truth

If problems arise, it is human nature to try and make them go away. It’s also human nature to be less than 100% honest on why they have arisen. This gets worse when people are under pressure. The issue gets further compounded as it finds its way up the management layers.

My advice is that you should quickly put in place an independent business assurance process reporting directly to you. Set it up so that it systematically collects information from the frontlines allowing you to triangulate this info with what your team know.

What happened then, what happens now?

On a positive note, to this day I have really good relationships with the people that came through the crisis with me, and quite a few have ended up being really close friends.

Having been in some of your shoes and knowing what it is like to be managing the relentless and seemingly endless pressure, I’m more than happy to talk about what I went through back then or what you’re going through right now.

Catherine Cross