The crisis playbook for leaders and job seekers | James Citrin | Big Think Edge

I'd like all of us to think about science and its methods and tools: space-time, the nature of human consciousness, artificial intelligence, incredibly realistic humanoid robots, a new technology for gene editing, the battle against climate change, future civilization, and Mars. Wherever we're gonna go, a Ranger highway, a laser beam shooting the consciousness of aliens at the feet of life, do get smarter faster with new Big Think videos, gaily from the world's most brilliant minds. Today's topic is who's hiring now: the crisis playbook for leaders and job seekers. Our guest today is James Citroen. Jim is a noted expert on leadership, executive success, and CEO succession. He's the author of many acclaimed and best-selling books, including The Career Playbook, You're in Charge Now, Watch, and The Five Patterns of Extraordinary Careers.

He's one of the foremost executive recruiters and leads Spencer Stuart's North American CEO practice. You'll start the discussion with Jim, and then we'll open it up to audience Q&A. You can fill in questions in the comment box on whatever platform you're looking at, and you can start immediately; we'll get them to the Q&A at the very end. We'll do an exclusive lesson for our Big Think Edge subscribers, so stay tuned for that, and if you're not a Big Think Edge subscriber, please go to bigthinkedge.com.

Okay, so let's get started. Thank you for being here, Jim.

Jim: Pleasure, Victoria. Happy to be here!

Victoria: Thanks. So, from a business leader's perspective, what about this time right now is different? We all know that the world has changed, right now, and it happens so fast and so suddenly. I've lived through, in my business career, two or three of the other crises: from the dot-com crash and 9/11 to the financial crisis. This one is different because it's the combination of a drastic and dramatic economic downturn, recession, depression, with a terrifying global health crisis at the same time. So I think it's woken up everybody to really focus on what's important on all the levels.

And so I think that there's a very popular conversation right now about leadership in the time of crisis. But here we are, and this is a time when people can really step up as CEOs or as frontline health workers or as individual contributors, no matter where you are.

Jim: Well, for sure! I mean, at Spencer Stuart, we're working with corporations, not-for-profits, organizations going through—and I see many, many examples of leaders stepping up. I'll mention some CEOs and all that, but I think a really important principle is that you do not have to be a CEO to be a leader at any time, but particularly now. Taking care of people around you who you care about—anybody can do that. You don't have to be a manager to be doing that as well.

One of the companies that I work with—lots of different companies—but one that I'm particularly inspired by is Starbucks, and Kevin Johnson is the CEO. He's an incredible guy, a very passionate leader, brilliant, technologically savvy, and global.

Because of Starbucks' unique global footprint, they saw this coming really at that turn of the year and started taking crisis actions in January by shutting down all of their stores in China in the first or second week in January. They say they are very focused on the health and welfare of their employees, which they call Starbucks partners. And the Starbucks partners then rally around and take care of customers. But they had rolling ways of closures and then had that work its way around the world.

But one of the things that we'll talk about is how a leader communicates in a crisis. Communications are always essential, but never more important than during a crisis. Kevin has been doing daily communications on a global basis, and we'll talk about how others have done great communications to strike the right tone and be realistic in what they're saying, but also having a not unrealistic sense of optimism, finding ways to help keep people focused and moving forward.

So anyway, Kevin's one good example. We can mention several others if you'd like.

Victoria: Well, there's a principle that is an enduring principle of leadership. It's been around forever, and it's a very simple concept, but again, it's never more important than today in a crisis situation. That's the idea of leadership by example. Any parent knows that, you know, your kids pay attention to what you do more than what you say. It's the same with a manager or it's the same with a CEO. Leadership by example is essential. Again, it's an enduring trait, but right now, how people behave in times of crisis speaks volumes.

So one of the great examples of leadership by example is Barry Sternlicht. Barry Sternlicht is a legend in the hotel and hospitality industry. He was a real estate entrepreneur, a brilliant deal guy, and he created Starwood Hotels back in the early '90s. He built the conglomerate of Starwood, brought by founding some lines and acquiring Sheraton and building Starwood. He was the creator of the W Hotel and the whole concept of boutique hotels. Starwood's now a part of Marriott.

Several years ago, he created a new line of hotels called the One Hotels. One of the things that Barry did that I was personally blown away by, a brilliant example of a case of leadership by example, is he created a Starwood Employee Cares Fund because, like many hospitality companies and many airline companies, they've had to furlough or lay off or put out many of their workers.

That's fine, trying to do that in the best way possible, but what Barry and his team did in creating the Starwood Cares Employee Relief Fund was two or three things. He thought at a very architectural level—a really clever first of all—they raised money for the benefit of their employees. That's fine, but many, many companies are doing that.

But not only did he do that through the company funds, but he went out to all the guests and the visitors who had experienced their hotels, the One Hotels, and they actually sent this beautiful note to them and encouraged people, sort of like a GoFundMe kind of situation: if you've experienced our hotels, it's because of the quality of our workers. And then could donate any amount.

But then what Barry did is, leading by example, he said he will personally pledge to match dollar-for-dollar all the funds. So he also seeded the funds with a huge amount of money with the leadership team, but then created this challenge, and I think that really inspired me and many guests of that hotel chain to give, and then he's doing it as well. So people really see that, again, in a leadership by example way. So there was a real good one, and I was very proud of him.

He happens to be a personal friend of mine, but I was just blown away by the thoughtfulness of this, and I haven't seen any other company do it quite this way either.

Victoria: That's great. So that's an example of leadership and leading by example in this time. So how do you think leadership will change after this?

Jim: Well, it's interesting, Victoria. One of the things that we study here at Spencer Stewart is what boards are looking for in their CEOs, and different times and circumstances call for different styles of leadership or different emphases. Many times it's about growth and innovation and product development. Other times it's about restructuring and taking costs out.

I think right now what we're seeing is that the winners in this situation are going to be those leaders who do three things. Number one is, with demand in many sectors really going down and revenues going down, it's a leader's responsibility to help the fiscal and economic health of the organization. So that inevitably means taking costs out, reducing costs.

But rather than just reducing costs across the board, the best leaders and the winners out of this will do two things: they will take costs out in a way that restructures operations strategically and will allow them to be more efficient and have much better, more attractive business models coming out.

So rather than just across-the-board cuts, they'll be saying, “How can we streamline our business model?” At the same time, all the research shows that in prior recessions, the winners coming out of the recessions didn't just reduce costs; they actually made select investments. They invested in things now that when we get on the other side start accelerating performance.

So whether it's new products or marketing or R&D, it's this combination of restructuring business model cost reduction on the one hand with selective investments on the other side. But then I think third is wrapping that around in the purpose. I think it's pretty clear to the audience and the Big Thinkers are very purpose-driven folks, and I think that the role of purpose and mission in companies has never been more important than it was even before this crisis.

But I think it's going to be that much more important coming out, so being kind of left-brain about the restructuring and highly strategic about the investments but then really right-brain and with your heart and soul really tapping into what matters to people.

I think one of the silver linings in this crisis is that it really has been a massive reset for the whole world about what's important: safety, groceries, family, friends, health—getting a little out of the social media nuttiness and that 24/7 busyness into the more fundamental thing.

I think related to that leaders are going to tap into that coming out on the other side as well.

Victoria: And you recently wrote an article about the Queen. I'd love one linked in, and I love about what you said in that article and why she can—we can learn from her as a leader.

Jim: Yeah, well, it's actually very opportune because it happens to be the Queen's 94th birthday today. She created—for any of you who are fans of the great television show "The Crown," you will know that she was an innovator. She's always been an innovator.

She did her first televised speech at Christmas, I think it was 1957 or something, way ahead of her time. But only four times in her record-setting 68-year reign has she ever done a televised speech about what's going on.

She did a famous one in World War II about the challenges of all the British families, particularly those in London, who had to send their children outside of London for safety during the air raids from the Germans. A couple of weeks ago she came on, and this happened to be the day that Prime Minister Boris Johnson was hospitalized—a terrifying time for the British people.

But again, only the fourth time, she came out and she did a communication that was so incredibly effective. I'd urge everybody to look—it was only a four-minute speech, but what it did is, like any great communication, it acknowledged and it addressed the reality of the situation. It didn't try and sugarcoat it; these are difficult times. But then it also had a lot of compassion about that we're all in it together, and then it gave a higher purpose of calling for the sacrifice.

Then it ended with this beautiful—particularly for then a 93-year-old queen who is beloved in her country and around the world—she basically closed it by saying, "We will be together again. We will meet again."

So it ended on a very uplifting tone, and just like with the Barry Sternlicht case of leadership by example, it was a beautiful case of leadership by example but also communications in a crisis. I think that's another attribute that all organizations are looking for, and all governments, by the way, are looking for their leaders to be there in a time that people need to hear what's going on and how people communicate clearly.

When we pivot in this conversation to actually, for those of you who are thinking about your own careers—applying for jobs—that idea of communicating has never been more important than it is today. But we can all look to the Queen for inspiration in the world.

So how would just a regular person communicate in an empathetic and effective way during these times?

Jim: I mean, I'm sure we're all gonna—on our family level with our friends—we're all getting information all the time. Again, either in our private world or in our organizations, everybody's sort of saying, "What are you experiencing? What's going on?"

Finding the right balance of being as fact-based as you can—if you're in a position of authority or if you're in a position of responsibility—it's really important to be authentic. You always have to be authentic, but never more important than now.

Try and say, "Look, here's what we're going through," not over-promising and painting too rosy a picture, but not being just a depressing downer either, but finding that right balance to be realistic but also be as hopeful as possible.

So I think that's a really important aspect of how to communicate and the importance. I'm sure for many parents who are listening, you’re dealing—whether it's young kids or even older kids, you know—they're looking to you for your direction and for your leadership, and you're looking to your organization leaders, health leaders, and government leaders. Everybody is looking, and they're looking for inspiration.

They look around the world to say, "Well, what's happening in China? What's happening in Italy?" and trying to bring those lessons. But there's never been a more important time than to synthesize information, have a point of view, but do it from the heart as well, in a very authentic way.

So many businesses today are going through really hard times, but exuding fear is going to help. Obviously, staying in business, if at all possible, is the objective. So how would you suggest businesses be communicating to their customers and even their shareholders in an effective way that doesn't cause panic?

Jim: I think that I've been really impressed with the way most organizations are communicating. I see this from the gigantic companies. I mean, I feel—look at what Amazon, Walmart, Kroger, and Target are doing. Or if you even look at many of the early-stage companies or the startups that many of us see on Instagram or through social media.

I think it's very clear, and I think everybody's paying attention to everybody else, but the first care is for the health and safety of their members of their organization or their community and then trying to do right by all their stakeholders.

I think it's starting with the health and welfare of employees is obviously the place to start. I see that across the board. I also see examples of companies—I see the airlines and the hospitality companies and others—basically saying, "We know these are very, very difficult times. Here we're here to serve; here's what we're doing; here are the safety protocols that we're putting in place."

Then also being very thoughtful about the economic relationships—whether it's deferring fee changes or deferrals or cancellations. I've seen one organization that basically said that for 2021, they're going to allow someone to defer their year subscription into the year 2022.

So being very thoughtful about that. Probably doing it from an attitude of how you treat people today in a crisis will be remembered long after the crisis, so again, that idea of kind of leadership by example, but just doing right by people I think is never going to be more important than it is right now.

Victoria: The normalcy of the charismatic leader may not be as important—postponement. Especially because in-person meetings may not be as frequent, how do you think about the characteristics of a successful leader post this crisis?

Jim: Okay, I've always been a believer, and I mean, I've studied this; I've written some books on this—that the styles of leadership can be across the board. They always have been, and they always will be. Someone can be a charismatic person and really get people fired up but actually be a lousy leader by not doing right by people or not having smart strategies or not executing well; they can just be charismatic.

I've seen extraordinarily introverted individuals be quietly inspirational and really decisive thought leaders and people leaders with a different style, so I don't think the style is the thing to focus on. I do think that the fundamentals of being a thought leader, being a people leader, helping care for people and creating strategies that are going to win— as I said, sort of the restructuring in a smart way with investing going forward—wrapped around a sense of caring and authenticity.

It'll be changes. As I said, I think that some companies now that were focused on how do they grow and continue to innovate with new products and markets may focus more on how do we keep operationally excellent? How do we be efficient and manage our resources?

So a little more perhaps operational than strategic, but that's just a slight shift. I don't think that's going to be a fundamental change, but I do think that again, these are times that leaders are forged, and I think everybody has an opportunity to step up.

Victoria: That's great. So now just turning to jobs, what kind of jobs do you think are thriving and will continue to thrive in this environment?

Jim: Well, I think that there'll be kind of two things. One is things that are essential, and I don't mean necessarily just the essential what are considered essential businesses by our governments—though those are a good place to look for where the growth areas are going to be. I'll come to that in a moment.

But essential roles—when a company has a leadership need, they have a leadership need. Companies and organizations need to be led, and at Spencer Stewart, we're continuing to do a lot of work with clients on CEO searches, CEO succession planning, and other C-suite positions.

You know, to save public, last week it was announced that we led the CEO search for eBay at a time while it was planned and it was going through, but the whole last month of that search process happened virtually. It was an extraordinary act of courage by the board to go forward with that and complete that appointment at a time when many of the board hadn't met the new CEO who starts next Monday in person.

So there are going to be some interview tips you know that CEOs and CEO candidates—but also entry-level—have that we'll talk about in a few moments. In any case, essential jobs are ones that organizations can't live without. They'll continue to go forward.

But then the second category is in sectors that are thriving in this business and are going to be likely well-positioned coming out of this. Some of these are the obvious ones—healthcare broadly speaking, and you just have to give your hats off to the healthcare workers, obviously the frontline workers and doctors and nurses and aides that are out there every day—but the teams behind them that are creating the systems and the delivery to make that happen. Hats off to them, and that's going to continue to be a growth area.

All the scientists—and you know, it was cybersecurity several years ago was a massive growth area. Immunology, virology, epidemiology—obviously going to be a huge growth area going forward. Not only that, obviously the infrastructure—one of the companies that have been massively inspired by is Verizon here in the States.

Now, they have 150 million or so customers. The volumes of communications and transactions that have happened over their state-of-the-art network are just extraordinary. I heard some of their CEOs, a wonderful inspiring leader named Hans Vestberg, and he shared with me the volumes—like the call volumes—the telephone call volumes on a typical day are like 10 times what they were, and they're as large as what, like Mother's Day is, which I think is the tip of the highest call day in the United States—or the text volume has reached what is typically done on New Year's Eve.

That infrastructure is handling a lot of the communications and the services that are allowing these kinds of communication, and many people who have the opportunity to work from home to do that. So the infrastructure and technology, and directed the whole direct-to-consumer world is another sector.

But there are also some less obvious ones. I was talking to a brilliant investor the other day and saying, "Okay, what do you see from a growth point of view coming out of this?" And he said, "Anything having to do with the home." I think people are rediscovering the importance of home and hearth and things.

So obviously the Home Depots and Walmarts of the world, but even home decorating, coming on the other side. But here was something that I thought was brilliant—again, it's just a hypothesis—but retooling. Are people gonna want to go to the movie theaters or sports stadiums before coming out of this? Yes, at some point.

But the densities that have defined that and a lot of the economic models that are based on densities—many of these movie theaters and restaurants and others—are gonna have to restructure their physical spaces. So people who are doing anything involved with this building or reconstruction or retooling—that's an unexpected area.

So obviously from a career management point of view, growth creates opportunity in a constraining sector or company. There are fewer and fewer opportunities and more competition for those, your opportunities. But in growth categories, there are more opportunities, and so that's obviously where you want to try and focus.

Victoria: And then what type of roles do you think may vanish altogether as we come through this?

Jim: I don't really have anything, Victoria, off the top of my head that's gonna vanish completely. There'll be certain things that are associated with the way things have always been done, but I don't have any brilliant ideas about what roles are vanishing completely.

Victoria: Well, so now questions. So let me ask you the first one, which is: how can employees use this crisis as an opportunity to build their resumes?

Jim: Well, I think this is a gift of time. It's terrifying if you happen to be either working and kind of underemployed or not working and looking for something, and it is scary—especially in a contracting economy.

So I would—if you are in the latter case of looking for something—really focus on pivoting to those areas that are growing, and there are still companies and organizations that are hiring. There's going to be more competition for those, so there's going to be really a premium on how you go about that process.

But I think there's another opportunity of taking advantage of the time and capacity that you may have to benefit from training or pivoting. I’ve got three kids, and one of them was furloughed from his company, and he’s been doing Codecademy, learning how to code while interviewing—all by video, by the way.

I also worked with—I’m working with a number of companies. One of the chief HR officers of a thirty-five billion dollar company said, “Jim, do you have any ideas? We’re trying to really maintain our workforce, which we worked so hard to build. We’re having some pockets where there’s a lot of capacity, and what can we do to use that?”

I actually introduced the chief HR officer to the CEO of an incredible company called InStride, which is the leading online education company that partners universities, who do degree-granting education, with employers who are looking to. And as I mentioned Starbucks earlier, Starbucks have done this with Arizona State University, and this company InStride facilitated that.

So as an individual, you know—whether it’s Coursera or online offerings or free things from that that are done or even degree programs—that's a really big opportunity to upgrade your skills, get some credentials, and then help move forward.

You should be looking for no longer—the most—the best you can do to protect yourself in general. But again, any time now is to be essential, and how do you be essential? That’s really by doing two things: it’s by adding a lot of value and being clever.

No one knows your job better than yourself, and rather than just kind of doing the same thing and running faster, really have the impetus to try and say, "How can I actually add more value? How can I add—whether it’s value that results in revenue to your organization, or at least value that’s fundamentally improving things?"

In fact, Victoria, at the top when you introduced me, you mentioned one of the books that I wrote. It was called The Five Patterns of Extraordinary Careers, and we did a huge amount of analysis of what differentiated the top kind of top 1% of performers in organizations from everybody else, and there were five patterns. One, by the way, was leadership by example, which I talked about.

But another was something I called the 20/80 rule, and people who know that, you know, typically the 80/20 rule—that 80% of outcomes happen from 20% of the inputs. But what we found is a strange and really unexpected pattern that if you actually look at what differentiates people, they do their jobs well.

So they do what’s asked of them. But rather than just do any more of the same, the top of the top do: they do their jobs, but they invent 20% of capacity to do things that no one else asked them to do—their bosses didn’t ask them to do—they reinvented their jobs in a way.

And actually, at an institutional level, Google famously created the 20% discretionary time, can they institutionalize that, asking employees to say, "You’ve got one day of the week where it’s up to you to invent something that adds value."

And I found many examples of how you can do that right now. So thinking while you have a little time to say, “How can I add more value to my internal team or my client base, or my customers? What can, what new service can we come up with? What new communication? What thought leadership can we share?”

People won’t ask you, so be self-motivated on that, and don’t just do more of the same. Do what you need to continue that, but say, “How—just ask yourself the question—how can I add more value more creatively?”

Victoria: Should we stay put in our jobs, or is now a good time to transition to new fields?

Jim: The obvious answer is it depends. If you are still employed, that’s good—want to appreciate that—but you also don’t want to be stagnating, and just as I was explaining a moment ago, to the extent that the organization is continuing to challenge you and you’re contributing and growing, that’s great.

You also want to be—you don’t—it's tough out there. It’s really—it’s going to be tough these next few months to find something. The competition for these open opportunities is going to be greater than it was before the crisis.

So I would be very cautious about that, but before I would leave something that you’re in, I would say about what can I do, what can I do to create more value in the job that make it more interesting and make it more growing? Or if you find that you have, it's just not much going on.

Then I would also go back and say, what skills can I develop? What projects can I consist of? But, by the way, even though there are fewer opportunities still, if you are currently working, employers are going to tend to give you a premium for that or value you a little higher that you’d be leaving a current situation to join them. So you are doing that from a position of strength, but I would be very extra appreciative of having a role right now.

I do think it’s incumbent on all of us to use the time to add more value.

Victoria: One of our viewers wants to know if you have a sense of when companies will start hiring again and what the current recruiting landscape is like now.

Jim: I think that there really are two drivers of big recruiting decisions, and one tends to be a skill set that helps people help organizations deal with things changing right now. And right now there'll be general skills looking for how to help organizations deal with the current crisis.

So whether it’s on the financial front—restructuring and thoughtful restructuring—or whether it’s on the technology front to help transition to more direct-to-consumer or direct kinds of businesses.

But the second will be when things come out, and this might be a little lagging—when companies start having the confidence to hire again. What the skill sets are going to be coming out of this crisis, as I said a moment ago, the essential roles will continue.

And you know one of the big themes, again, at the very top of organizations that companies and boards are doing now more seriously than ever before—and it’s absolutely essential—is emergency succession planning.

Typically in the United States, about 10% to 12% of CEOs of large companies turnover each year. So in the S&P 500, that’s about 50 to 60 new CEOs per year. Most companies know that they need to have a succession plan, but right now, most companies and clients we’re working with here at Spencer Stewart, they’re now saying, “You know what? It’s not just the CEO, but it’s the entire C-suite that needs succession plans and emergency successors.”

So what process do we need to go through right now? So if you can be one of these essential players or one of the skills that help organizations deal with things right now or later as things start to hopefully come back out, one of the growth kind of skill sets that’ll be very helpful as well.

And there’ll be certain very specific things, like technology product managers, that see things and then help organizations build things and market things. And obviously the whole health sector, as I mentioned before.

Victoria: What should job seekers do?

Jim: One of the most frustrating things in the world, and I’ve seen this, and I see it with my kids and young people who I advise, is trying to apply for jobs through web portals and career sites on companies’ own career pages. Obviously, you have to do that, but for every opening, there might be hundreds, if not thousands, of applicants. Many companies just do a bad job—they can’t keep up; they don’t have the person power to respond to everything.

And it’s that black hole. So you kind of have to do that, but I also think that the old principle of trying to find a warm introduction or referral is never more important than right now.

So if you can say, if you can apply to something and then be very creative to say who could you—if not who do you know—who do you know who might know someone in that organization?

Using LinkedIn very cleverly, using if you went to college or university, using your alumni directories to say, and to search, "Who might be currently working for or might know someone?" Use your family and your friends. Be very transparent about: “Oh, I’m looking at this organization. Do you know anybody?”

They say, "No, my sister-in-law, I think she works in the home-improvement sector, so she might know somebody." And if you can then ask some—to say, “Here’s a great way to ask for help, by the way—ask for someone to say, ‘I’ve just applied for a role as an assistant product manager at Etsy.' I'm just making this up—and you found a friend of a friend who knows someone who works at Etsy.

Then you send them that application or the link to that, and then they send that to the person, and say, “Oh, Victoria—a friend of my son’s has applied for the assistant product manager role that’s at Etsy and I’ve spoken with her, and she’s really great.”

That dynamic that I just described dramatically improves your odds of getting seen and getting interacted with. No one’s gonna hire someone who they don’t believe favors, really—or don’t really work—but to get someone that goes with a warm recommendation along with an actual application—it’s worth 10 times just doing it because a lot of times, unfortunately, people feel like they're just sending things into a black hole and over here back, or at best, they’ll get an automated rejection, and nothing’s more frustrating.

Victoria: So this is the last question. You had mentioned that now’s a good time to learn new skills, and you've spoken about Codecademy. Do you have other suggestions of what people might be doing to improve their attractiveness in the job market?

Jim: Sure, but I would link by what you’re interested in. If you’re interested in the home area and knowing that that might be a growth area, maybe taking a home design course and being fluent in that. Or, you know, some of the—if you’re interested in healthcare as a growth area, there’s such an infinite universe there—find fine-tuned courses or do lots of reading on.

I would be really driven by a confluence of where the opportunities are likely to be but also where your personal interests are, and that will propel you to learn and then find ways to get up that learning curve, and then that can lead to the opportunities.

Victoria: That’s great. So thank you so much, Jim. This concludes the public portion of the webinar for our Facebook and YouTube viewers. Tomorrow we have Lisa New, Harvard perspective professor of American literature at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time, and now we’re going to, for our Big Think Edge subscribers, get into the exclusive lesson with Jim.