Call for Leaders | Alexandra Olteanu (Initiative Romania): It is crucial for leaders to communicate and share decisions openly whenever possible and to make sure management and teams are in sync

Call for Leaders – 3Q is a new category where Business Review features our 3 questions with some of Romania’s top business professionals, bringing a positive, insightful, or otherwise constructive view of their markets in the context of the current crisis.

Current conversation: Alexandra Olteanu, Managing Director, Initiative Romania

What are the measures you took for your business during this period?

Starting two weeks ago, we committed to act with the highest level of responsibility and safety, and all our teams switched from office activity to working from home, in a fully operational manner. We activated and reinforced all systems, local tools, procedures and technology that allow us to keep communication up and running permanently with colleagues, clients and suppliers, in order to carry on with our projects and campaigns and address our clients’ needs in the best way possible. To best support our activity, starting this week, all our corporate mobile subscription montly plans were updated with additional internet traffic, as well as those of our colleagues who are using their personal phones to complete their jobs.

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These are unusual times, when proactivity, creativity and connectivity are more necessary that ever. This is why Initiative debuted Initiative Post, a new reporting format, available to all our teammates, clients and suppliers, that covers constant updates on COVID-19 related market changes and many other content materials. Initiative Post includes stats and data on media channels evolution, from TV and radio to online, print and OOH, media consumption behaviour, top advertisers and most active brands, as well as helpful resources for appropriate business strategy building, daily productivity and even lifestyle activities ideas and suggestions to try while spending time at home, provided by Initiative team members, to bring some balance to this pretty stressful period for everybody.

What’s your advice for business leaders regarding this crisis?

I believe choosing the right mindset is the most important thing for a business leader in regular circumstances, and even more so during such a challenging time. As they do so, leaders need to be the first ones to fully comprehend all aspects of their clients’ situation, to then be able to assess and meet their needs, in a flexible and agile manner. At the same time, business leaders need to take into account the safety of their employees and investigate the most comprehensive factual information from reliable sources, which is mandatory in order to come to a good set of decisions on how to proceed, both immediately and on the long run.

It is crucial for leaders to communicate and share decisions openly whenever possible and to make sure management and teams are in sync, with multiple messaging channels opened, allowing a smooth dialogue and high transparency with clients and employees. Be prepared to act fast. Be resilient. Prepare for short-term, but also consider long-term when making decisions. Stay authentic.

What’s the most positive business news you’ve read today and want to share? 

Given that we are crossing a period of great uncertainty in so many ways, which implies a high dynamic of events and of the general perception over those events, I believe that ”today`s positive news” can completely change polarity and meaning by tomorrow. So I prefer not to get very excited too soon over a specifically ”daily good news” I`m reading about these days.

This being said, I do believe focusing on the positive aspects is essential during a crisis, and I am really happy to see how many platforms, publications and public figures seriously enrolled in the mission of sharing with their public daily lists of positive news, to keep morals high and point to the fact that solidarity is extremely important in fighting the epidemic. It is a wise and noble approach and I applaud these initiatives.

Standing out, the one I would share is digital entrepreneur Orlando Nicoara`s Facebook feed, which he updates daily with a top 10 (or more) both local and International positive news that he collects from different reliable sources. Reading such a list is a good day starter in these times, and I think people should use any means to feed their positivity and optimism.