Reopening Safely—Open Letter to CEOs, University Presidents, and School Superintendents: Let’s Cut the BS. Here’s the Real Scoop
CEOs, University Presidents, and School Superintendents – It’s Time to Quit Stalling and to do the Right Thing. Return your company, university, or school district (or government agency or hospital) back to work NOW. But only do it SAFELY. Which you can.
Let’s face it, as a prominent CEO, University President, or School Superintendent (or Government Agency or Hospital Head) you’d be nuts NOT to return to work, soon. AND you’d be nuts NOT to do it safely.
Either negative course could injure many employees, especially workers/teachers, and customers/parents/students, particularly kids, as well as destroy your and your executive teammate’s careers and your company’s reputation to current employees (damaging their retention and productivity) and prospective employees—and brand to current and prospective customers/students.
Reopening Safely: Let’s Cut the BS. Here’s the Real Scoop. How Do You Best Fulfill Your Duties and Responsibilities for Returning Your Units to Work, BOTH Soon AND Safely? The Answer is Laid Out Full-On in this short article’s Sister, Full-Length Article (Booklet)?
S2P does not pretend to know all the answers, but we are certain we know most of the essential insights well enough to help you to go forward immediately, both aggressively AND with a high degree of safety.
The clock is running for all CEOs, University Presidents, and School Superintendents. Every day, hard-working Americans, boards, customers/parents/kids and investors/taxpayers are ever-louder saying: “Leaders, move forward both safely and quickly, soon—or get the Hell out of the way.”
The Conundrum
On the one hand, if you move too late and too slowly, people will die or otherwise be severely harmed.
On the other hand, if you move forward now WITHOUT an Action Plan for thoughtfully building and skillfully operating a top COVID-19 Spread Mitigation Program, safely, again, people will die or otherwise be severely harmed.
The Problem
A. There are 11 million companies in the US. Very few are doing the Right Thing—Right.
B. There are 4,000 universities/colleges in the US. Again, very few are doing the Right Thing—Right.
C. There are 130,000 elementary schools and 24,000 high schools in the US. Again, very few are doing the Right Thing—Right.
D. There are roughly 2,000 federal, state, and county government agencies in the US. Again, very few are doing the Right Thing—Right.
E. There are 6,000 general and specialty hospitals in the US. Again, very few are doing the Right Thing—Right.
Key Questions
What questions are in the aggregate set of key sets of questions you might ask and answer as part of the drawing, executing, and auditing sound and timely completion, set-up, and operation of the Action Plan?
1. What do you do? What’s worse, what are you required to do? A very small and very cheap program? A world-class COVID-19 Spread Mitigation Program?
2. How do you do it? With outside assistance? With whom? With spread mitigation and risk-management experts?
3. Who on your team shall lead the effort? You? The COO? The EVP? The CFO? The CHRO? Many companies and school districts say the CHRO.
4. Where? At the Facility/School House Gate and at the Store/School Door? Elsewhere to? At-home?
5. When? Immediately? In two Months? Three? Four? Five? Six?
6. Why? Justifications? Insights? Action Plan?
7. Small “p” political support? From whom? How soon? How Strong?
8. Large “P” political support? From whom? How soon? How Strong?
9. Budget? How much? How soon? Restrictions?
Next Steps
What you need, soon, is to create both (a) what is referred to as a Goldilocks-Zone Action Plan, and (b) what is referred to as a Goldilocks-Zone Program, both of which take all of S2P’s first-ten insights into serious account—along with the further, soon to be released, S2P-second-ten insights.
In Other Words, Do This Thoughtfully
But:
First, not overly fast as to be reckless. Not overly slow as to be reckless, too. But just right to sufficiently satisfy legal and business standards of care, as well as your own and your teammates’ ethical, moral, and social standards.
Second, not overly risky as to be reckless. Not overly risk-free as to never get your Spread Mitigation Program launched, or not launched soon enough or fast enough, to save lives and prevent other serious harms. But, again, just right to sufficiently satisfy legal and business standards of care, as well as your own and your teammates’ ethical, moral, and social standards.
Third, not overly expensive as to bankrupt the company or the school system or overly cheap as, again, be reckless. But, once again, just right to sufficiently satisfy legal and business standards of care, as well as your own and your teammates’ ethical, moral, and social standards.
Just do the right thing the right way and do it soon! That is the only safe harbor that you have left. Or look out. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, but regrettably, it belongs to a train.
A Few of the Insights
A few of the ten insights, abbreviated into nutshell size, and the duties and responsibilities that go with them, are:
A. Inward Looking (Including a Few Details)
(1) At Least Protect Your Career and Your Sense of Self-Worth. Likely no CEO or School Superintendent has ever been fired, or their careers destroyed or ended, for spending too much, f0r doing too much, and/or for doing it too soon—In a precarious situation, in which aggressive action is reasonably likely to be needed to save lives and prevent other harm to the key constituents of a business or of a school system.
On the other hand, one need only look at the destruction of most of the meatpacking industry, through its “CEOs sitting-on-their-hands fiasco,“ where many of them certainly were at fault.
In hindsight, the ones at fault either did nothing, waited too long and/or were not bold, and lacked true leadership skills, or did too little, or did enough, but did it too late to prevent deaths and other serious harm to many—especially, those within their primary constituents-group (employees, particularly workers/teachers, and the members of their families; customers/parents/students; and suppliers of all kinds, as well as their investors/taxpayers.
A CEO or School Superintendent must either be really dumb, lack true leadership skills, and guts, and/or be reckless, to fail to act reasonably (in terms of the three key parameters listed above)—just as soon as any “reasonable-average-executive” would have known to smartly act, and then smartly acted.
Legal and Business Standards of Care
All must be done in accordance with both Legal and Business Standards of Care. AND, for their own sense of self-worth—as well as the respect of their family members, teammates, and neighbors—as well as in accordance with their own ethical, moral, and social standards, and those of their teammates.
Keep in mind that, if nothing else, S2P delivers a better peace-of-mind to CEOs/Superintendents, Managers/Administrators, Workers/Faculty, and Customers/Parents/Students, as well as family members and other loved ones.
B. Outward Looking (Communicated Only Briefly)
Finally, even if you are reckless regarding yourself and your family members and your other loved-ones, at least do the following acts for the sake of the other constituents for whom you are responsible:
(2) At Least Understand the Serious, But, to an Unknown Degree, of Hazards of Current and Developing Covid-19 Variants. And how best to respond to these key uncertainties.
(3) At Least Understand the Impact of Not Knowing the Degree (Depth and Strength) of Effectiveness of Current Vaccines on Each of the Current and Emerging Variants. And how best to respond to these additional key uncertainties, too.
The URL to the Full-Length Article (Brochure)
For many thoughtful details on these three insights and on the other seven, see the 15-page full-length article (brochure) at:
S2P published this Article on” CEO/School-Superintendent Responsibilities” on LinkedIn and on S2P’s Website, just a few minutes ago.
Immediate Feedback
Plus, let S2P (at john.norris@safely2prosperity.com) have your immediate feedback on these and your own spread mitigation planning insights. Your thoughtful feedback will enable S2P to immediately polish S2P’s first ten insights. And follow suit on the next ten.
Finally
We have no monopoly on the truth.
Refinement of:
(a) findings of fact, especially when there are many conflicting studies and findings,
(b) insights,
(c) ideas,
(d) strategies, and
(e) action plans
should be a continuous process, back and forth between S2P and the CEOs or School Superintendents S2P agrees to help on fair-both-ways terms. This should be done BOTH for the benefit of individual CEOs and individual School Superintendents, AND for the benefit of all of mankind, both here in the US and throughout the world.
In Sum
S2P’s two major goals are:
First, to make a strong and positive difference in peoples’ lives throughout the world, and
Second, to make a fair-return on S2P efforts and its successes—so many more people can help us to accomplish our overwhelmingly first goal, 10x or even 100x over.
Do help us in fulfilling these goals. It will be good for YOU, for US, and for the WORLD.
Best,
John
John
PS: Again, the URLs to the full-length “CEO/School-Superintendent COVID-19 Responsibilities” Article are:
LinkedIn:
S2P Website:
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Follow-Up Communications
If you need to, or might like to, reach me for further discussion, or to answer your questions, or otherwise assist you, my contact information is as follows. My Email Address: john.norris@safely2prosperity.com; My Cell Number: 617-680-3127; S2P’s Website: Safely2Prosperity.com.
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*To be clear, neither the FDA, the CDC, nor NIH has reviewed this brief Article or in any way commented on it. I am sure there are alleged facts, thoughts and insights here that the FDA might disagree with, in whole or in part. Plus, my tone is far more forthright, aggressive, and predictive than the FDA, the CDC, and NIH likes to be, or in reality, politically and legally, can be.
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© 2021, All rights reserved. This document is forward-thinking and contains only limited, summary information. It is intended to be used for informational and educational purposes, only. It is not a comprehensive description of facts, alleged facts, insights, strategies, ideas, plans, laws, rules or other important considerations. It does not constitute management, advisory, financial, legal, accounting or consulting advice. Consult the FDA, the CDC, NIH, and COVID-19 Spread Mitigation Program experts, advisors, managers, lawyers, accountants, and consultants for advice on particular aspects, strategies, matters or cases.