The Best of This Week

During the COVID-19 crisis, we at MIT SMR want to support our readers by offering free resources on how to lead during the pandemic.

We also want to hear from you and find out what challenges you’re facing in a quick two-question survey in this week’s web edition of our weekly recap.

Managing the Flow of Ideas in a Pandemic

While their workforces practice social distancing to limit the spread of illness, leaders need innovative tools and tactics to optimize the flow of ideas, maximize effective communication, and sustain productive decision-making. When in-person contact is pared down, an array of tools and approaches can help to bolster trust, solidarity, and the mental health of employees.

You Are Not Alone in Your Coronavirus Grief

During this harrowing time, many of us are feeling grief — for ordinary days, for missed in-person connections, for a sense of normalcy. David Kessler, the world’s foremost expert on grief, spoke with Harvard Business Review’s Scott Berinato about why it’s important to acknowledge the grief you may be feeling during the pandemic, how to manage it, and how he believes we will find meaning in it.

Crisis-Proof Your Org Chart

The COVID-19 outbreak has exposed many interlinked fragilities — of the global supply chain, certainly, but also of individual companies’ organizational structures, many of which offer little room to maneuver or adapt in an emergency. A full-scale organizational transformation simply isn’t possible overnight, but managers can learn from the approach of a Chinese manufacturing giant that quickly rebounded from the coronavirus, due in part to its emphasis on autonomy and microenterprises within the business.

How to Fight Burnout

For The New York Times, Wharton’s Adam Grant looks at how the risk of burnout in our jobs increases in stressful times. For Grant, an organizational psychologist, the best model for fighting burnout is demand-control-support, which gives people three options: reduce the demands of a job, provide support to deal with them, or increase control over them.

What Else We’re Reading This Week:

• A dozen of MIT SMR’s most popular articles on managing teams
• Is anonymized health data really anonymous?
• Working from home with kids, many struggling parents are newly appreciating teachers and creating funny memes

Quote of the Week:

“The truth is that both boomers and millennials want business to do better than it has. Both age groups want business to be a positive force in society. Both want business to work to build stronger communities, cleaner environments, and more meaningful and better jobs.”

— Edward Freeman and Ben Freeman in “Is There a Generation Gap in Business?”