COVID-19: OUR COMMITMENT IN DIFFICULT TIMES

As a global community, we have entered unprecedented and challenging times with major social, governmental, and economic disruptions stemming from COVID-19. Significant concerns around our health and the health of our loved ones and friends, economic dislocation and uncertainty, and the future are on all of our minds. What is certain, however, is that we are all facing this crisis together, and the immediate impacts are real and rapidly evolving.

Our consultants take pride in living out a culture centered around our non-negotiables. Like many of you, over the past few days we have had challenging conversations about how to process the unfolding events and the resulting impacts that each of us is experiencing. We have reacted quickly to adjust the way we work together, making the space for our team to have open and honest conversations about the challenges we all are facing.

The scope and impacts of COVID-19 are unknown at this point, but the uncomfortable reality is that it is already impacting our communities significantly. Our team has been discussing how we can continue to carry out our lives in the midst of the circumstances in which we find ourselves. We have been asking ourselves how we can balance compassion and commitment to containment efforts with the responsibilities we have to support our families, our coworkers, and our broader communities. These are difficult topics with which we are all wrestling to understand and navigate as the days unfold. 

The Gunter Group exists to help realize the potential of our clients, our consultants, and our communities. We are doing our best to support our team and we are working with our clients and the broader business community to support them as well. We are all experiencing real and immediate business challenges in the face of the COVID-19 outbreak. Our commitment to deep partnership and delivering real business value has never been more important than in this time of crisis and we are getting creative in order to support our clients when and where they need us most. 

We are both Veterans, and have experience leading teams in difficult times and situations. Our unique team also brings years of experience in crisis operations to our clients, whether it is responding to unexpected, external shocks or leading military service members in war zones. Our experience leading in times of crisis drives how we respond to COVID-19, and how we focus our firm’s response. We keep core values, or non-negotiables in our case, at the heart of everything we do. The realities of COVID-19 are unique, but there are core principles for dealing with crisis that we have learned transcend the specifics of this event: remember your core values, focus on the mission, dramatically increase communications, and give your team the support they need to continue moving forward. Most of all, we know that now more than ever, caring for the personal and professional intersections of your workforce and community matters.

We will continue to share practices we have put in place for our own team, but we are also actively living out our commitment to our clients:

Crisis Management–leading, coordinating, or supporting unexpected challenges that have arisen as a result of COVID-19.

Business Continuity–partnering with clients to plan and execute business continuity efforts across a range of business models and industries.

Strategic Momentum–helping clients continue to move their long-term, strategic initiatives forward as they navigate timeline and resource challenges.

Human Resource Constraints–providing interim leadership and staff support for a number of clients in the face of uncertainty.

As this pandemic continues to develop, it will require adaptability to address evolving challenges. However, we know that we will get through this challenge together by focusing on our non-negotiables, remaining committed to our people, clients and communities, and being creative in the face of uncertainty.

We wish everyone in our communities the best as we all continue to navigate through the COVID-19 outbreak.

Tony Schweiss, Principal and Reno Market Leader. Tony builds teams to support strategic change initiatives and helps leaders plan for highly impactful change. Thriving in the face of complex problems, he brings clarity to ambiguous situations and organizational questions. Leaders quickly come to trust Tony as a partner in making their tough decisions. 

Matt Bader, Principal and Portland Market Leader. Matt’s passion and leadership purpose is all about helping teams reach their highest potential. He loves building and leading high-performing teams and seeing what can be accomplished when strong values, sound strategy, and a relentless commitment to execution collide. He is a trusted advisor who thrives on building lasting partnerships and driving high-quality solutions for clients.