The Manager’s Secret to Helping Teams Navigate Uncertainty

With the continued spread of Covid-19 Coronavirus, the world is finding itself having to transition to a new and fluid reality. Similarly, the role of managers has become more fluid, as they are expected to adjust themselves to the situation as it develops. This entails finding innovative ways to communicate, provide guidance, and support teams that are possibly working remotely for the first time. A seemingly insurmountable task, particularly when coupled with the already demanding complexity, and workload that comes as part of delivering for the United Nations.

 What are the challenges?

Teams increasingly require leadership that is structured, yet flexible, with managers who are able to communicate in a constructive manner through a time of transition, confusion, and upheaval. At the same time, managers must be equipped with the knowledge and skills to self-lead through a process that is also new to them. They are expected to identify, understand, and process the emotions they are experiencing – before effectively extrapolating this to their staff and teams.

To add to this already complex situation, there have been numerous how to-to guides, and articles that have been circulated widely in the past 2-3 months. The exhaustive, and disparate nature of these articles is likely to lead to managers, and teams that are even more overwhelmed, confused, and powerless.

What is required to feed into concrete action?

To navigate their way through these uncharted waters, managers will need a structured, focused, relevant, and coherent learning intervention to allow them to obtain perspective, and to gain insight, experience, stories, and lessons learned.

The United Nations System Staff College (UNSSC), based in Turin, Italy, has such insight and experience. This is not only as a result of its mandate related to designing and delivering effective learning for UN Staff, but also, crucially, because of a concerted effort to help deal with the impact of COVID-19 on personal, and professional assumptions, processes, practices, and realities.

The staff college, has been at the forefront of COVID-19’s development from an “over there” issue, to concerning rumours, whispered hearsay, and eventually an immediate here-and-now crisis.  As such, it is well equipped to offer insight on the tools, and practices required by managers during this, and other crises. These tools and practices have been designed with contributions from relevant experts, who have ensured that they translate into actionable, and contextualised learning. Ultimately, managers will leave knowing exactly what to do, in as far as transitioning and leading during this time is concerned.

How can managers ensure that they are not left behind?

The UNSSC Helping Teams Navigate Uncertainty Programme couples online synchronous Webinars with readings, best-practice, professional insight, and online moderated fora to equip you with the tools to prepare yourself, and your teams, for this developing challenge. The two-week, four-Webinar programme provides insight and guidance on;

·     MANAGING AND STRUCTURING WORK FROM HOME

·     RESILIENCY

·     MANAGING TEAMS REMOTELY AND COMMUNICATING IN TIMES OF CRISIS 

·     REMOTE COACHING PRACTICES FOR MANAGERS

This unique programme is being delivered, at no cost, in partnership with the Department of Management Strategy, Policy and Compliance (DMSPC) in the United Nations Secretariat. As such preferential access will be granted to eligible staff across entities of the global UN Secretariat.

The UNSSC is, however, as a service to the UN System at this complex time, providing 100 SEATS, OPEN to any UN staff member on a “first come, first serve” basis – we encourage interested parties to register.