The game has changed was a recent webinar series that examined the potential governance, operational, and regulatory impact that COVID-19 is causing within the entertainment industry around the world. With input from industry experts at various stages of pandemic-enforced lockdowns, speakers will share a range of insights regarding guest restrictions, stringent health and safety measures, and compliance pressures.
This article reflects on the learnings and insights regarding leadership during a crisis that Brett Anderson, CEO at Christchurch Casino, made throughout his 30-year career in the entertainment industry.
To put this into perspective, Brett has worked through two major earthquakes, one mass shooting, the 2000 intifada (rebellion) in Israel, and now COVID-19. So, what is Brett’s wisdom for leaders in the face of a crisis?
1. Leadership in normal conditions reflects leadership in a crisis
Preparation is clearly important for leading your business through a crisis, but not how you may think. Most would think you need a clear playbook for every scenario and how your business will respond. But you can’t plan for everything, and no two crises will be the same.
Instead, putting in place ideal leadership practices in normal times, such as how you conduct yourself, how you engage with your employees, and how good you are to your word will all reflect on how your people follow you through distressing times. Holding yourself to a high standard when times are easy will help you gain the credibility and trust your employees need in to follow you through uncertainty.
2. Get to know people by name
People won’t necessarily have name badges in a crisis situation so knowing their names will give them confidence and make them feel valued. Brett has a database of all his employees with a photo in it. If he doesn’t know someone, he’ll go into the database and memorise the person’s name. It takes time, but it resonates with people and makes a lasting impact.
3. Be front and centre, and available
There is no shortage of rumours and uncertainty flying around in a time of crisis. Therefore, leaders need to be accessible and approachable at all times. This means creating an environment where employees are comfortable asking leaders hard questions, even challenging decisions that organisation makes. If leaders create this environment during normal times, employees can seek the answers they need to allay any reasonable fears when it matters.
4. Address and remove anxiety
By resolving people matters as a priority, leaders can help employees get through difficult times with greater comfort. It can even mean employees take their focus off themselves to helping others. The key points of anxiety often resolve around the remaining six tips.
5. Pay your employees
If your business shuts down, the first thing your employees will think about is “Am I going to get paid.” If you can resolve this in the first couple of hours you’ll limit the number of questions or concerns being thrown your way, which means you can focus on the task at hand.
When the Christchurch earthquakes hit and the casino shut down, Brett arranged for the bank to process a repeat of the last payroll. He knew there would be some overs and unders, but that wasn’t his main concern at the time. Then for the next six weeks, they agreed at a governance level to pay their employees as normal for six weeks, no matter if they stayed in town or went elsewhere. It’s all about giving people certainty!
6. Communicate
As a general rule, you can never overcommunicate things, especially in a crisis. Talking with your people, having your people leaders talk with their subordinates can help everyone feel connected and valued.
Within 24 hours of the earthquake, they were able to ensure that everyone of their employees was safe.
Once they had established this, they could start addressing how they will roll out their operational or logistical matters.
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Don’t avoid the issues or the hard questions. People want the truth and value honesty.
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Don’t over promise either.
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Keep your customers in mind too, as you want them to come back when they feel safe.
7. Being present (mentally and physically)
You cannot control the crisis or what happens but you can control how you react to it. Therefore, in the face of a crisis if you’re not there for your people, the impact can be much greater – from both a personal and business sense.
By not being prepared you can easily get swept up in the overwhelming tide that can ensue. A key part about being present is planning, which doesn’t need to be laid out word by word. Instead, you can think about various situations and how you’d react to them, which you then communicate back to the executive so everyone else is on the same level.
8. Maintain your sense of team and culture
Whether you can remain open or must shut for a period of time, consider ways you can keep your team connected. The employees from the Christchurch casino created a volunteer army that went around to houses who were damaged in the quakes and lent a helping hand. While this wasn’t appropriate during COVID-19, they were able to do something similar at the casino, putting employees into teams to prepare it for the return of people.
9. Enable your people to make informed decisions
If we were to summarise this whole article, the key to helping your people through a crisis is by giving them as much information as you can so they can make informed decisions. It’s very likely that you may not have some people return to work after the crisis and that’s completely fine. Make sure they have the information to confidently make that decision.
10. Make use of technology
One of the first things that goes down in a crisis is typically the cell phone coverage. So, make sure you have systems in place to be able to reach your people as required – be that email, messaging services, group chats (i.e. Slack or Teams), etc. Like in one of the earlier points, if you can incorporate this into your day-to-day operations, then it will be second nature in the time of crisis.
If there was physical damage to your premises during the disruption, review CCTV footage to see the extent of the crisis. You may identify things that need to change to protect your people and your customers for future events.
Brett Anderson is CEO at Christchurch Casino. Entering the gaming scene as a dealer in England over 30 years ago, Brett, now the CEO at Christchurch Casino, has seen his fair share of disruption. From intifadas to two major earthquakes, Brett’s experience with unforeseen closures is arguably second to none, which made him a perfect contributor to this conference.
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