Building Community in Uncertain Times

Building Community in Uncertain Times

by David Keil

I have focused my life’s mission to advocate and support women, share life lessons and help women scale their business. I am a husband of 32 years to a college professor whose doctoral dissertation focused on risk preferences in gender/pay issues, a father of a strong woman and have been a partner and coach to eight women founded or led franchise businesses including The Lash Lounge, Madison Reed, HoneyBaked Ham, Pure Barre, skoah, The Barre Code, City Row and Live Well.

I would love to share my thoughts on building community, particularly in these times of uncertainty

1. Be a visible leader It is important to be out front and visible to your team. When there is a gap in information or connection, people tend to fill that void with their own fears or assumptions. Even if your natural leadership style is to delegate through others, you must get in front of the team – visually if possible – and communicate often. I communicate on three levels:

• Start by acknowledging the current state or naming any issue or uncertainty; be authentic, transparent and vulnerable to gain trust

• Set clear goals and repeat them often – beginning with goals that impact people’s hearts (e.g. your health comes first)

• Create a path of action, at a high level, even if issues have an unknown end date

Open, live and regular communication to the whole team is one of the most effective means of establishing credibility, trust, community, and speed of decision making.

During COVID-19, we have held weekly all-hands meetings and established daily check-ins via our project management software, recreating the same ‘water-cooler’ or ‘walk-by’ conversations that are organic in a face-to-face workplace. Touchpoints make clear that our top priority is for remote individuals to remain connected to the overall mission of the organization and to reinforce that their role and impact is valued and seen. Multiple points of contact let the team know that their leader is engaged, caring and present.

2. Say “thank you” At Franworth, we were recognized as EY Entrepreneurs of the Year, in large part because of how we have built community. One simple way we do that is giving “Culture Bucks’ to one another. When we catch someone acting out our values, we write them a quick note on a form that looks like a dollar. Quarterly, we pick a few and read them out loud to one another. A handwritten note takes 30 seconds, though its impacts lasts months.

3. Engage people’s heads, hearts and hands Capturing people’s heads via knowledge and information, goals, and strategies is necessary. Engaging people’s hearts – by checking ‘on’ them, not just ’in with’ them is even more important. In times of uncertainty, a casual ‘how are you doing’ does not suffice. I have moved to asking clear questions about a family member, challenges of a project or asking about feelings to get to the heart of the matter. “ We used the crisis as fuel for creativity and invention.

Finally, I have found that getting people focused on their area of impact/ control vs area of concern is the quickest way through a significant challenge. When a team’s hands arebusy, they are creating a new beginning and are less likely to get trapped in ‘how things used to be.’

4. Give Back True joy comes when we give back to others. We do things as simple as organizing days where we give back at a food bank – as a team. We have also founded a nonprofit company (Franchise For Good) whose mission is helping nonprofits scale. It was a dream a year ago, and now we are helping create BuildStrong Academy which will train people in second careers in trade jobs. We build a community when we work on a goal beyond our own lives or livelihood, together.

5. Get creative / have fun In times of uncertainty, it is also important to have fun. We used the crisis as fuel for creativity and invention. Several of our businesses created new income streams in a matter of days; when consumers weren’t able to come to us, we went to them virtually. What would normally have taken months to plan and implement was accomplished in a matter of days. These ideas were helped along by gathering functional groups of different concepts together (CEOs, field operations leaders, marketers) to cross-pollinate new ideas and create cross-brand programs.

Despite being forced to work remotely, our team members and portfolio companies’ leaders have actually grown closer. We’ve worked out together (virtually), held Friday happy hours on Zoom and shared favorite books and Netflix shows during our daily check-ins.

Leading and living during uncertain times is a challenge. I hope of a few of these ideas help you and your teams not only survive, but also build community as you live in these uncertain times.

Dave Keil is President and Chief Operating Officer of Franworth, which has 450 combined years of experience building and partnering with emerging franchise brands. Prior to Franworth, Keil led four franchise companies as CEO: The Lash Lounge, Pure Barre, HoneyBaked Ham and Haagen-Dazs Shoppes. Keil started his career as a Fortune 500 leader at companies like Frito-Lay, General Mills and Ecolab.

Keil received a bachelor’s degree in Industrial and Operations Engineering from the University of Michigan, and an MBA from the University of Kansas. Keil shares leadership insights via lessonsonpurpose.com, founded the nonprofit company Franchise For Good and was recognized by the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal as one of the “Top 40 Under 40” leaders in the Twin Cities.