Courtesy of McKinsey & Company
Mihir Mysore is a partner at McKinsey.
- Businesses need adaptable leaders to deal with a crisis like the coronavirus pandemic.
- Mihir Mysore, expert partner and leader of the crisis response team at McKinsey, told Business Insider that he wouldn't appoint someone to lead crisis response if they haven't experienced a personal or professional tragedy.
- Mysore also explained that someone's interpersonal skills, values, and demeanor are telling characteristics in how they would respond to a crisis.
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Companies need resilient leaders - especially during a global pandemic.
The novel coronavirus has shut down operations at local restaurants and major corporations like Apple, shrinking global economic growth by $1 trillion, Markets Insider reported. All industries are impacted by this health crisis, companies are issuing crisis response teams and buckling up for a global recession.
Coronavirus, which causes a disease known as COVID-19, has killed more than 15,400 people and infected more than 360,000.
Business Insider recently spoke with Mihir Mysore, an senior consultant at McKinsey who coauthored the company's comprehensive insights report on the outbreak. Mysore said he would never pick someone to lead a company's crisis response team who hasn't experienced a personal or professional tragedy in some form.
He previously shared with Business Insider a four-step plan on how businesses can implement contingency plans for the pandemic. The senior consultant stressed that companies need to be careful about who they appoint as the primary decision-maker during the pandemic.
"These leaders need to make philosophical choices, and you need someone who has faced hard times before," he said. "You need to choose someone based on their ethics, their values, and their way of deep thinking."
Decision making is not black and white during a crisis
Crises are complicated. And your appointed decision-makers should be people who approach problem solving with a creative mindset, Mysore said.
"People who are use too structured approaches find the dynamics of a true crisis overwhelming," Mysore said. "Which is why we recommend it be somebody who wouldn't be overly optimistic or overly pessimistic when they go about their responses - but that they make their calls based on accurate information."
Decision makers who have been through tragedy tend to be more adaptable, the McKinsey consultant explained. They have experience being dealt a bad hand. In the case of the coronavirus outbreak, there are many moving parts without an easy solution. Businesses not only need to do what's right by their workforce, but they also have to solve problems for stakeholders, suppliers, and the industry at large.
"It really comes down to temperament and someone's principles," Mysore told Business Insider.
Select someone who is a quick, rational thinker
You can't assess someone's adaptability based on their hard skills. In fact, crisis response is more about one's soft skills and how they react during chaos. You want people who can learn quickly, understand quickly, and figure out the implications accordingly, Mysore said. Speed is crucial.
When coming up with a plan to combat coronavirus, don't let emotions cloud your judgement either.
He urged business leaders to go beyond emotional headlines and come up with a "portfolio of actions." Have immediate plans in place, and also have plans ready in case it gets really bad. Rational thinkers and colleagues who are outcome-oriented would be a good fit, he added.
"People who understand that the path to get to a goal might be unclear, but that they're confident in their ability to figure it out." Mysore said. "Those are the ones you want as decision makers."
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