The NBA is a league of change. Recent roster turnover has been spurred by a number of factors, from an inflated salary cap and shorter, more exorbitant contracts, to restless owners, to star players progressively embracing their own power. Teams have been forced, at breakneck speed, to become comfortable with being uncomfortable.

Before the NBA went on hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic, chaos was its new normal: compelling, delightful and anxiety-inducing. But the constant shuffle also sparked an existential question among hundreds of affected players, coaches and front office executives: How can chemistry be fostered in an increasingly erratic era of impatience, load management, reduced practice time and youthful inexperience?

Every year you have six new teammates, Houston Rockets guard Austin Rivers said in an interview with SB Nation. Its like gaw-lly! In some ways you wish that would stop.

Its a new NBA, man. Guys are playing on a new team every year now, and it has nothing to do with how good of a player you are, its just how the NBA is. I have teammates whove played on eight, nine teams. I mean, thats fucking nuts. I dont ever want to go through something like that. (Rivers is 27 years old, and on his fourth team in seven NBA seasons.)

Over the past six months, dozens of players, coaches and executives across the NBA spoke with SB Nation about the state of the leagues chemistry, and why creating cohesiveness now is more difficult and demanding than ever before. Their responses sketched a blurry future for the league.

Its amazing how fast players change in todays NBA, Indiana Pacers general manager Chad Buchanan said. From when I got over here two years ago, Myles [Turner] is the only player whos still here.

I have teammates whove played on eight, nine teams. I mean, thats fucking nuts. - Austin Rivers

Last summer, nearly half of the leagues talent pool swapped jerseys. Seemingly every roster in the league was forced to learn complicated new personality quirks and on-court tendencies. Honed locker room dynamics and hierarchies changed dramatically.

Chicago Bulls forward Thaddeus Young has played for four teams in the last six years after spending his first seven with the Philadelphia 76ers. Few people know better just how precious chemistry can be.

With how the salary cap is going, teams are not locking themselves into long-term deals anymore, where they have four to six guys on four-year deals, Young said. Its definitely tough because you dont know each other. The communication is gonna be off. The teams that you came from before, you might be driving the basketball and you might be used to a guy being in the corner and that guy might not be in the corner.

The NBA may be long past being able to reverse the course of roster turnover, but teams are doing their best to mitigate any downsides. The teams that have done the best job tend to think of chemistry in two buckets: personal and performance. The former contains how players interact away from the game, and the latter contains what happens on the court. However, personal chemistry often informs performance, and vice versa. Once players are comfortable off the court, their on-court relationship improves.

Take Los Angeles Lakers forward Jared Dudley, for example.

When I got here Id turn the ball over throwing to our centers because they expected a lob, Dudley said. I dont really throw lobs, Im more of a bounce passer.

Dudley solved his problem by initiating conversations with LAs big men, verbalizing his own in-game habits so that everyone could get on the same page. Not all NBA players feel so comfortable expressing themselves, however. Especially when an on-court situation is more complex than what to do on basic pick-and-rolls.

When the personal chemistry exists, the performance chemistry is often very easy because the performance chemistry is sometimes a function of hard conversations, one Western Conference GM said. The personal chemistry allows a guy to say, Hey man, in the second quarter last night there were like four straight defensive possessions where four of us were back in transition and you werent. You really put a ton of pressure on us to cover a five-on-four when you were lobbying the officials for a call. It took you forever to get off the deck. Come on, man.

Over the past 20 years, no organization has been more conscious of team chemistry than San Antonio. The Spurs are also far and away the modern eras most influential organization: Nearly one third of the leagues rival head coaches and front office executives can be traced back to head coach Gregg Popovich.

Drafting multiple Hall of Famers undoubtedly factored into the Spurs success, but their efforts to maintain an open atmosphere for stars and role players alike one that obsessed over values of tolerance, respect and empathy also separated them from everyone else.

However, San Antonios year-to-year continuity is also becoming progressively rarer, if not extinct. When Chicago Bulls head coach Jim Boylen was a Spurs assistant during the 2014-15 season, they had brought back 14 members of the previous years 15-man roster.

And of those guys, a bunch of them had been together for years, Boylen said. Now theres approximately 6.5 new guys per team. Thats unheard of.

To ignore San Antonios sprawling influence would be like praising observational comedy and never once mentioning Jerry Seinfeld. But even the Spurs are vulnerable in a league where turnover is the status quo. Prior to the 2018-19 season, they traded Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green, and lost in the first round of the playoffs for the second year in a row. Prior to this seasons hiatus, they were on track for their first losing record in 21 years.

The Spurs dont have an advantage anymore, Dudley said. We all have a disadvantage. Now its who has the most talent. Talent is gonna win out. Talent and vets.

In 2012, James Tarlow was an economics student at the University of Oregon when he presented a paper titled Experience and Winning in the National Basketball Association at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference. Tarlow wanted to know how roster continuity relates to team chemistry, so he pulled data from 804 NBA seasons played by 30 franchises between 1979 and 2008. He defined chemistry as the number of years the five players playing the most minutes during the regular season have been on their current team with one another.

I got an actual measurement of how important [chemistry] is, Tarlow said in a conversation with SB Nation in March. And its pretty dang important. If you keep your team together its like a third of a win for a year, which, people dont appreciate that and it doesnt seem like much, but if you have a team that stuck together for several years, that turns into another game or two. Thats going to get you into another round in the playoffs.

Bill Russell once wrote, There is no time in basketball to think: This has happened; this is what I must do next. In the amount of time it takes to think through that semicolon, it is already too late.

Its an intuitive idea: The longer were around people, the better we know how theyre going to behave under certain circumstances. Just think of the short-hand forms of communication youve established with your closest friends, family members and coworkers. Those subtle gestures and glances are especially helpful in sports, where a split-second miscommunication can be the difference between winning and losing.

You go back to those San Antonio days, the winks and blinks and the nuances [where Tim] Duncan would find Tony [Parker] on a backdoor, or Manu [Ginobili] would find Timmy on a lob, that evolved over time, and lots of times [time] isnt afforded, said Philadelphia 76ers head coach Brett Brown, who spent nine years as a Spurs assistant. You need time to have that sophisticated camaraderie, gut feel, instances on a court that require split the moment decisions.

Continuity by itself doesnt lead to winning, of course. In some cases, it might only extend mediocrity. And if winning a championship is an organizations goal, then it should first pursue star power. But continuity is a boon to coaches, who can implement more complex strategies if theyre able to retain a core group of players year after year.

Right now with the influx of new players, youre having to really keep your playbook and your schemes at a basic level because you are teaching more, Charlotte Hornets head coach James Borrego said. Youre just starting almost at a ground level every single year in a lot of different ways, where the teams that have had success for years and years, theyre building on every single year.

You never actually practice anymore like when I first got in the league, everybody had a million plays. Steve Clifford

The lack of in-season practice hours only compounds coaches frustrations. With shorter timeframes to fold new players into their system and culture, coaches around the league feel they need to adapt quicker than they ever had before.

As Boston Celtics head coach Brad Stevens joked, We get three weeks to get ready for a season, then we never practice again.

Orlando Magic head coach Steve Clifford believes that the league office did the right thing by limiting back-to-backs across every teams schedule. During his first two years as head coach of the Charlotte Hornets, they played 22 back-to-backs each season, while only 11 were on the docket this season for Orlando. But the schedule shift has hurt in unforeseen ways.

When you play a back-to-back you usually get two days off, most times, right? Clifford said. So you give them a day off and then when you come in you can practice. Theyre rested, you bring referees in. You practice. You actually practice.

You never actually practice anymore like when I first got in the league, everybody had a million plays, and you had to know the plays and stuff, and now if you do its an advantage but people dont look at it like that.

A side effect of so much player movement may be a simplification of the product. NBA teams have evolved to emphasize an up-and-down, free-flowing style of play that is largely the byproduct of an analytical revolution to prioritize threes, layups and free throws. Modern basketball is filled with pick-and-roll heavy offensive actions that dont require the same on-court intimacy as a stockpile of elaborate set plays.

My gut tells me that roster turnover is whats causing the thinning of playbooks, one western conference general manager said. And the thinning of playbooks is whats causing this standardization of playing style.

Players feel it, too. Most teams dont do anything. Really its just take the ball out the basket, pick-and-roll, and run, Rivers said. The coaches are really here to guide you now. Its crazy. Its more ATOs (after time-out plays) and out of bounds, and late clock, fourth quarter, thats when coaching really comes in play. Thats all we go over in shootaround. Most of our stuff involves defense because our offense is fucking ridiculous, man. We dont really do anything on offense.

Even teams that have gone out of their way to maintain continuitylike Cliffords Magic, which returned 85 and 82 percent of their minutes over the past two seasons, respectivelyare not immune to change, and all its myriad effects on strategy.

The game is what they wanted it to be when they changed the rules, and the level of execution is still high, obviously, Clifford said. Its not nearly the gameplanning league that it was even seven or eight years ago.

Sustained success is not possible without collaboration, and collaboration becomes habit when several contributors spend thousands of minutes battling together in the same system. The Golden State Warriors had the benefit of several superstars as they won three championships, but they also had an iron collective grasp of what they wanted to accomplish on every possession.

I think there is a level of beauty that exists with the game that is tougher to reach with the turnover, Warriors head coach Steve Kerr said. For example, if Draymond [Green] ever caught the ball in the pocket off of a high screen with Steph [Curry], Andre [Iguodala] knew exactly where to go and Draymond knew exactly where he was going to be. We didnt even have to practice it. And thats why you saw, frequently, either the lob to Andre along the baseline or Andre spaced out.

NBA teams have been thinking about how to manufacture chemistry for years, long before this accelerated era. None of these billion-dollar corporations can ever be sure how well their efforts actually work, however. Their adjustments have always been based on in-game progression, but success also depends on other obvious factors, like talent, injuries and dumb luck.

A difference between then and now is that players are driving roster decisions to a greater extent. They have much more leverage within organizations, and the biggest stars can take their talent elsewhere if the locker room doesnt jell quickly enough. For many teams, that means they have to proactively foster strong bonds among teammates by encouraging new and returning players to stick around the practice facility during the offseason.

The summer time is big for us, Borrego said. We cant demand it, but we encourage it Guys can really settle down and connect, really understand their teammates, understand their coaches, and its just a much more comfortable situation that allows for chemistry to be built and grown.

The Hornets also organize team dinners when theyre on the road, a practice Borrego borrowed from his time in San Antonio. When asked if those dinners are mandatory, he gave a wry smile: They are team dinners. Then there are others that happen organically on their own, and I want our players to do that. If theyre doing it on their own thats even better than me organizing something.

If theres somebody in your organization that hasnt gotten over himself or herself theyre a pain in the ass ... they cant be happy for somebody elses success. Gregg Popovich

As one former Spur told ESPN: To take the time to slow down and truly dine with someone in this day and age Im talking a two- or three-hour dinner you naturally connect on a different level than just on the court or in the locker room. It seems like a pretty obvious way to build team chemistry, but the tricky part is getting everyone to buy in and actually want to go. You combine amazing restaurants with an interesting group of teammates from a bunch of different countries and the result is some of the best memories I have from my career.

Of course, Popovich was also good at finding players he wanted at the table.

The more you can stay together, the more the chemistry builds. But still chemistry is more a function of the character of the players than it is anything else, Popovich said. I always talk about getting over yourself. And if theres somebody in your organization that hasnt gotten over himself or herself theyre a pain in the ass and they make it harder for everybody else because they can only feel about their success. They cant be happy for somebody elses success. It has to be about them. If you dont have that then nothing else is gonna help you have chemistry. You cant make it happen.

Still, every coach tries to get everyone on the same page. As players digest their new surroundings, its important that everyone coaches, players and executives understand their expectations for one another. Rockets head coach Mike DAntoni boiled his own approach down simply: Dont ask somebody to do something they cant do. If youre gonna have to change a guy, you might not want to bring him in in the first place.

It is impossible for any team to keep all 15 players in the locker room happy at the same time; theyre human beings who are all going through their own real life issues. But a haphazard onboarding process will create headaches down the road. According to Buchanan, coaches have to be able to anticipate players questions.

Why am I not getting to do this? or Why am I not getting to play more? or Why am I not playing with that guy? or Why am I not starting?, Buchanan said. You try to get that communicated up front so the player knows what hes stepping into, because lots of times chemistry issues evolve from a lack of communication.

When general managers and coaches are unaware of loose frustrations, they risk one player venting to another, sewing animosity that does irreparable damage to the entire team. Left unattended, a team can spiral into soap opera.

Its not difficult to create chemistry, Atlanta Hawks head coach Lloyd Pierce said. Its more about sustaining it through the course of 82 games with so many ups and downs. Obviously [we had] some of those moments with John [Collins] being out and Kevin [Huerters] injury. Roles start to shift and some guys werent ready for it, so the frustration of that kicked in.

The Hawks have done two things to stave off that seemingly unavoidable discomfort. The first is an all-in dedication to how they play, in which everything revolves around pick-and-rolls with Trae Young and a rim-rolling big. By keeping the gameplan simple, they can plug in pieces as needed.

When Trae masters it and everybody else understands it, you know, you roll a little bit harder and you shake up a little bit better, and you slash a little bit better. Thats who we will become, Pierce said. Any big that comes to our roster [knows,] I can play here because I know Im gonna get the ball at the rim.

The Hawks also have a breakfast club that Pierce took from his time as an assistant under Brown in Philadelphia. Every time the club meets, players stand up in front of their teammates and discuss something that matters to them. Earlier this year, Collins enlightened the room with a powerpoint presentation about what it was like growing up in a military family. Huerter talked about growing up in upstate New York and losing high-school friends in a drunk-driving accident.

Former Hawks center Alex Len gave a particularly tender presentation last season that moved his head coach.

Youre barking at Alex Len. This fucking guy, he doesnt compete, he doesnt appreciate this, Pierce said. Well, Alex Len talked about why he couldnt go to the Ukraine for the last seven years. Wow, I didnt know you had such a tough time with that. Im over here fucking yelling at you for not rolling in the pick and roll. I dont know youre dealing with this Ukraine thing for the last seven years and not being able to go home and see your grandparents. My bad. Ive got to get to know you a little bit better.

Three years ago, Kings owner Vivek Ranadive asked a communications coach named Steve Shenbaum to work with his team. In 1997, Shenbaum founded a company called Game On Nation, which helps corporate executives, military personnel and government employees in addition to professional sports teams.

Within the past decade, Shenbaum has been brought in by the Lakers, Trailblazers, Nuggets. Cavaliers, Grizzlies and Mavericks, and agent Bill Duffy has asked Shenbaum to assist several of his clients, including Carmelo Anthony, Yao Ming and Greg Oden. He has more than 100 improvisational and conceptual exercises to help clients build self-awareness, selflessness, confidence and other traits that enable character development.

A favorite is called last letter, first letter, in which two teammates have a conversation with one rule: as they take turns speaking, they must start with the last letter of the other persons last word, and keep the conversation going. The exercise forces both parties to listen, let one another finish and focus in ways they otherwise might not.

My hope is I am planting seeds and empowering the players and the staff to take what theyve experienced and run with it and multiply it, Shenbaum said. I want them to see each other in another light.

Shenbaum has many telltale signs of good and bad chemistry, but a big one is how well veterans are buying in. In a league thats getting younger and younger, its imperative that older players command respect in the locker room and impose a will to succeed.

Dudley believes veterans who might not even be in a rotation can earn their money by bringing everyone together in ways a coach or GM cant. During his one year in Brooklyn, he organized dinners, trips to the movies, parties and other events away from the game that involved the whole team.

Then, when we were in film sessions and I would call them out, they took it as love and not criticism, Dudley said. Youre developing a relationship and then you can tell them, Spencer [Dinwiddie] or a guy who thinks he should play more, this is why youre not playing. This is your role for this team. Rondae [Hollis-Jefferson], he got benched: Hey Rondae, for you to stay in the league, this is what you gotta do. On this team youre not a starter anymore but theres gonna be times they call on you. He stayed ready.

Almost everyone interviewed for this story agreed that chemistry cant be forced. Players on contending teams have to go through organic hardships together before they can become comfortable enough for the difficult conversations that facilitate progress. Some teams dont believe its necessary or appropriate to ask their players to spend more time together than they already do. They believe that players should figure out issues among themselves, and that a front offices biggest role is doing good background research on everybody they bring aboard. Coaches are there to take a teams disparate pieces and position them to succeed.

I think everybodys budgets on team meals now has skyrocketed league wide because of the San Antonio Spurs, Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra laughed. The more important thing is getting a team on the same sheet of music about your style of play and an identity on both ends of the court, understanding whats important, what the standards are, the expectations, role clarity. These things fasttrack, in my mind, chemistry. Its always nice if guys like each other and they go out to eat on the road, have dinner together. But that doesnt guarantee anything.

Spoelstra knew early on that Jimmy Butlers oft-misunderstood persona would have no trouble fitting in with several players on Miamis roster because they all shared the same sense of duty.

Its always nice if guys like each other and they go out to eat on the road, have dinner together. But that doesnt guarantee anything. Erik Spoelstra

Ive noticed with Goran and Jimmy in particular, they have such a beautiful on-court chemistry because theyre in their 30s, theyre only about winning right now. They dont care about anything else. If you want to define on-court chemistry, in my mind its how willing are you to help somebody else. And how willing and able are you to enjoy somebody elses success when it happens.

The character vs. talent debate isnt new among NBA decision-makers. But going forward, we may see teams value the former more than they have.

If you get a group of four new players who you bring onto your team and theyre all team-first, unselfish, competitive, self-motivated players, theres a decent chance that the chemistry is gonna have a chance to be good, Buchanan said. Doing a ropes course, thats great in theory and may work for a business, but professional athletes, they develop chemistry by knowing they can trust each other because theyve been together through tough times on the court.

Chemistry is worth deep investment, but perhaps it can be overanalyzed, too.

We try to make the simple complicated at times, ESPN NBA analyst Jeff Van Gundy said. Going out to dinner is a far different chemistry than playing chemistry. You read a lot about, We play paintball together. Who gives a shit, you know?

I dont believe its the reason why a team is either good or not good. I think youve gotta get great players, and when you have them you gotta try and keep them.

There are endless ways to cultivate chemistry, but teams can still only guess at what will work in every situation. Statistics arent a good guide. They cant quantify personality flaws or gauge emotional intelligence. When intuition is the best way to make a decision, some front office executives lean too hard on what they can measure instead.

I think a lot of these GMs, they really dont take [chemistry] into consideration, Utah Jazz center Ed Davis said. Theyre starting to treat the NBA like 2K and more just looking at numbers instead of, are these two players going to get along? And I think youre gonna start seeing GMs lose their jobs.

Top-tier skill, athleticism and on-court awareness is very often the bottom line for NBA teams, but those still trying to crack chemistrys mysteries have good reason to believe they arent running a fools errand, as vulnerable as their circumstances may make them feel.

Theres something very powerful about newness, Shenbaum said. And if you embrace it early, whether its a new coach, five new players, the star left, if you embrace it early you can actually create a very authentic bond.

Defining chemistry can feel like trying to catch the wind. It is omnipresent and elusive at the same time. Until the NBAs best and brightest crack the formula, they will have to deal with increasing levels of uncertainty in what was already an uncertain business.

Time will tell if NBA teams ever learn how to overcome their mounting challenges from the shifting ways teams are built, to how on-court strategy is implemented, to the quality of the game itself. But theres no denying that chemistry is a force multiplier, complex and intractable. And in an era of basketball that demands urgency more than ever, that fact can be frightening.

A lot of players and teams will continue to fail in familiar ways, well-laid plans crumbling because players, coaches and executives never understood each other on or off the court. Only now, they may not realize their mistakes until they find themselves starting all over. Again.

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The NBA has a chemistry problem - SB Nation

There may not be a future to come back to for the Lib Dems. Now is the time for planning and policy focus.

The Liberal democrats are in a bad spot at the moment. This isnt an argument. Its pretty much a fact. As recently as three months ago the group was riding a wave of decent success. Claiming a dominant second place in the May European elections, enjoying the highest levels of paid membership in the partys history, successfully negotiating a non-aggression pact with other remain parties and as a result, winning the Brecon and Radnorshire by-election in August and gaining ten MPs that chose to defect from other parties to them.

Most importantly, they established themselves as the main force to represent the Remain voting population of the country. A position that some argue Labour should have adopted in order to defeat the Tories.

This position turned out to be somewhat of a poison chalice to the party.

The December 2019 general election result saw them lose half their MPs, including all of the ones that defected from other parties. They also lost their leader, Jo Swinson in a close defeat to the SNP.

The concentrated support they needed to win seats in the UK Parliament simply wasnt there. The proportional representation from the European Parliament election suited them much better and created a false mentality that such success could be repeated domestically.

More than three months on, It could be argued that there was one main thing that the Lib Dems shouldnt have done after the collapse.

That one thing is: Nothing.

They couldnt afford to fade back into political irrelevance. To once again become unknown to the majority who dont have the time or interest to follow politics on a regular basis.

The question now is where do they go from here to rebuild and get back to the heights they were at during the coalition government?

The easiest thing for the party to do would be to stick to the main policy that grew their membership to what it is today over the last four or five years. By focusing on Britains relationship with the European union.

Rejoining the European Union for Britain is pretty much out of the question at this point. At least not for another generation when the party could push for a referendum on rejoining. Thats assuming that in thirty years or so the EU or some similar organisation still exists. This isnt a viable option for the longevity of the party or even a short-term strategy, given the ifs and buts.

To continue to focus on the idea of the EU, the party must accept that Britain has now left and we cannot go back. Instead, they could push for the idea of a close working relationship while Britain negotiates its future with its European neighbours and other nations to secure trade deals, movement of people, environmental policies, healthcare etc.

This idea of promoting a close EU relationship would probably still encounter similar issues to that of regaining membership. An overwhelming majority voted Conservative at the election. A move that is largely seen as support for Brexit. The support for Britain remaining close to the EU is not concentrated enough to be a viable path to success. The party would eventually fade into a position similar to what UKIP was like when they first formed. A fringe, single-issue group but on the opposite side of the argument.

The party could potentially go back to previous policies that they didnt support long enough for them to gain any sort of traction. Policies that were ditched after election campaigns ended and were often created solely for general election manifestos.

These could include ending imprisonment for the possession of illegal drugs if they are only for personal use. A divisive policy that was adopted by the party in their 2017 general election manifesto under Tim Farron. And one that was picked up too quickly and dropped even quicker when it failed to produce the immediate staggering results that the group wanted. Only gaining the party four seats in that election.

Though the idea would be divisive. It could pull in a class of recreational drug users or a new wave of more liberal-minded voters. This policy would take time to be accepted by society but could grow to a larger political movement that has the potential to push for meaningful legislation at a future date.

Another idea could be resurfacing the argument for a voting system with more proportional representation. An issue that the party supported in the alternative voting system referendum in 2011. The issue was dismissed with a comfortable win for the No campaign with a more than two-thirds majority.

This would pose a similar problem to pushing for a second EU referendum. They would need to wait for another opportunity in a generations time for the issue to become fertile. The difference this time however, is that it may not take as long. Since that referendum, there has been more indication of how the system didnt work effectively. (The 2017 general election produced a minority government). Thats twice in a decade.

Theres also a large number of supporters of minor political parties that would back the opportunity to make their views and votes have more meaning. This could gain real traction especially with the recent failure of the Labour Party at the general election. If the country continues on its path as effectively a one-party state, this idea could gain potential if its given time to develop.

I think a good quote for the Liberal Democrats in their current situation is that Rome wasnt built in a day.

If they want results, they have to give their ideas time to grow. And if they dont start to develop these ideas soon, they risk sinking the party beyond the point of no return.

Presently, the party is divided over its deferred leadership contest. Instead of choosing a new leader quickly and beginning the work of rebuilding, they have opted to delay the contest in light of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Though the reasoning is justifiable, given the potential cost to human lives; this isnt what they need. A simple online poll sent to members via email would act as a sufficient gauge even if it was agreed that this would only be a temporary leadership position until the pandemic subsides.

It would be wise for the party to support the government in its stance on the current situation. This isnt really the time to be scoring party political points. Even if they did try this predictable tactic theyd still be decimated in the polls, as Boris Johnson holds a massive advantage no matter whose data you decide to consult.

Policy should be prioritised over leadership at this current time. Unite behind the candidate with the most support, rebuild to the point of security, then and only then contest the leadership. This is a time for development and rebuilding. Not for aggression. And this is something that should be adopted by all of the losing parties in the 2019 election. Were seeing it with Labour with the election of Sir Keir Starmer. It would be wise for the Lib Dems to follow suit.

In a nutshell. The party should support the government through this state of emergency and get some definition back through either new or returning policies, and a new leader. (The policies are more important than the individual who announces them at this moment in time). Once this pandemic is over, then and only then should they get a more permanent and properly elected leader who can start to go on the offensive and try to claw back points in the polls.

A constant theme of all the Liberal Democrat manifestos and leaders intentions since 1988 was that the party wanted to be seen as a viable third option in British politics. But if things carry on the way they currently are, theyll be lucky to even be considered as that.

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Whos still interested in the Lib Dems? - Shout Out UK

Tawa town centre in New Zealand during lockdown for the Covid-19 pandemic Photograph: Dave Lintott/REX/Shutterstock

New Zealand has been one of the few western nations to pursue a policy of elimination for Covid-19, drawing global praise and popular support at home for a swift and stringent lockdown that began three weeks ago.

But now as the prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, decides how and when the strictest measures in the countrys national shutdown will ease, New Zealands comparatively low death toll and case rate have generated increasingly fraught and personal disputes between scientists about whether the lockdown has proven too costly.

Ardern announced on 23 March that the government would move swiftly to implement a stringent national shutdown at that point no one had died from the virus and a little more than 200 active cases in the hope of preventing the catastrophic death tolls seen in Italy and elsewhere.

On Monday she is due to signal whether her government believes four weeks of the most restrictive lockdown measures which will expire next Wednesday have been enough to flatten the curve and what the next steps will be.

To date nine people have died of the virus in New Zealand, with more patients having recovered than there are remaining active cases. Modelling used by the government had projected 14,000 deaths if the virus remained unchecked, and Ardern has been lavished with praise by commentators overseas for averting that possibility.

But domestically as always she faces a harder task in convincing the country to stay the course with the elimination strategy, said Jennifer Curtin, a politics professor at the University of Auckland.

There are a lot of people who are experts in this space in a way that we havent really seen in other crises that shes had to deal with, Curtin said. This is a whole of society crisis and a whole range of interest groups are offering their opinion now.

Ardern has suggested that during the next phase of recovery from Covid-19 restrictions will be loosened only slightly. She has also pushed back at academics who are calling for a swift and total lifting of restrictions.

[It is] commentary that reflects our success to date in stamping out the virus as reason enough to take our foot off the pedal, Ardern said. It is not.

Among those calling for an immediate end to the lockdown is a group of scientists who provoked controversy this week by exhorting Ardern to reopen the country. The group of six, calling themselves Plan B, have claimed that a strategy of elimination is bound to fail and would generate worse economic and health outcomes than the virus itself.

They have pointed to Australia, a favourite example of strict lockdown detractors, where a slightly less restrictive shutdown has seemed to result in a similar case rate of Covid-19 to New Zealands though that conclusion has been disputed by a number of other scientists.

Prolonged lockdown is likely to cause greater harm than the virus to the nations long-term health and well-being, social fabric, economy and education, said Simon Thornley, a public health lecturer at the University of Auckland, in a statement on behalf of the group. He added that New Zealands health system had spare capacity to deal with Covid-19, unlike in more populous countries.

Echoing the group, the leader of New Zealands parliamentary opposition, Simon Bridges, wistfully referred this week to the takeaway coffees and haircuts Australians are permitted to access. New Zealanders can only leave their homes to walk, buy groceries or see a doctor.

An editorial published by the group which appeared to have sparked Arderns remarks on Tuesday generated a backlash on social media where users said their proposition would condemn to death the elderly and those in ill health.

Ive never experienced the level of vitriol that occurred over this, Thornley said.

Siouxsie Wiles, an associate professor in microbiology at the University of Auckland who has been a prominent government adviser during the crisis, accused Thornley and his group of cherry-picking and misrepresenting evidence to support their position. An article she wrote rebutting their points also generated a tirade of social media abuse this time against her.

At the heart of Plan B is the belief that those who are more likely to die from Covid-19 should self-isolate so that the rest of us can get back to our normal daily activities, Wiles said. This sounds awfully like the UKs original herd immunity strategy and look how that turned out.

No one would argue that the lockdown was not harmful to the economy but there was evidence from other countries that it was the least worst option, she said.

More than 60 academics from Auckland universitys population health school signed a letter on Thursday saying they backed the governments elimination strategy.

Nick Wilson, a public health professor at the University of Otago, said scientists using their authority to suggest the economy should be reopened immediately were being irresponsible in a time of such crisis.

Normally it wouldnt matter much, duelling academics, he said. But in a national emergency, which is what this is, if people are coming up and saying the governments strategy is wrong, it is irresponsible not to back this with some very thoughtful work.

For his part Thornley is taken aback at the exhortations for him to be quiet. Im getting that sense that Im out of order asking these questions, but to be quite frank these are probably the biggest policy decisions the government will make in my lifetime, he said. I want to be helpful. I could have not said anything and I would have been having an easier time.

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Debate over when and how to ease New Zealand's lockdown turns personal - The Guardian

When the reality of COVID-19 began to sink in, it felt like everyone was flooding inboxes with messages of heres our plan or were all in this together. Many organizations were intently focused on getting a reassuring message out. Agency concern for the public and other external stakeholders was the initial priority. Now several weeks in, most federal program managers seem to have established a regular cadence and tone for their updates and guidance.

As you adjust to this new normal, you can now turn your focus to your internal customers. These internal customers are your colleagues from other parts of your organization that depend on your teams work.

Whether internal or external, customer engagement is all about relationships and trust. In the old world of three weeks ago, many of us cultivated these internal connections in-person, during face-to-face meetings, over lunch, or chats in the hallway. Now, as we work from home, its more important than ever to reassure your peers and partners within your own organization that you are open for business and committed to serving their needseven if they cant see you doing it.

Start by reaching out. Tell them in an email or an audio recording what you are doing, as a leader, to keep your employees safe, healthy, and motivated. Share how you and your team are not skipping a beat in delivering the solutions and services they expect regardless of your location. Are there upcoming activities that could be affected, like planned group meetings, technology deployments, deadlines, travel? Be honest; let them know that there may be delays, extensions or even cancellations. Admit that there may be some bumps in the road, but that your devotion to their success is unwavering. Inform of your contingency planseven Plans B and Cshould you need to shift course. And with genuine compassion, make sure they know you care about their health and safety and that of their own teams.

Establish regular touchpoints. While you may not be able to gather in your office or conference room for weekly status meetings, you can leverage approved online meeting options like MS Teams, WebEx, Skype for Business, even FaceTime, to meet by video, share your screen, and do some whiteboarding. Sure, conference calls can be effective, but theres nothing like actually seeing each other, especially in these challenging times, that can bring a feeling of personal connectedness. Kids and pets invited!

Ask what they need. Remember that they are experiencing the same or similar challenges. Are there tips you can give about effectively moving employees to telework? Are there ad-hoc reports they need to make their job easier now? Think about the future; what will they require from you when this crisis is over, and they transition back to the office? Work together to plan for it now.

Report your accomplishments and request feedback. In a virtual world, transparency is key. If they are not already in place, develop dashboards that show the status of your projects, progress against goals, and metrics that matter to your customer. Share these reports regularly with your internal customers and employees. Doing so will instill a level of confidence of that you continue to deliver seamlessly. And ask what you could be doing better, especially now.

Do the same for your team, especially the compassion part. This is a time of tremendous change and uncertainty. While you feel pressure to meet your customers needs, so do they. Connect with them often, celebrate their successes, encourage their well-being, and most of all, be the caring leader they need.

While you navigate this new normal with your colleagues, you can connect with your internal clients and ensure they know they can count your services and support. While there is no playbook for this, the brands [organizations] demonstrating empathy, acknowledging how theyre adapting their business, and transparent about how theyre taking care of their team are the most successful, says Simon Hill, North American president of consultancy FutureBrand.

Lee Frothingham is customer experience consultant and communications strategist with Wheelhouse Group.

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Ensuring Continuity with Your Internal Customers in a Virtual World - Nextgov

Stepping into a role as a leader whether as a seasoned executive or a neophyte supervisor is both challenging and exciting. How you handle this transition can have a huge impact on your career. You need to hit the ground running not only with your bosses and key stakeholders but also with your direct reports. Research shows that having a 90-day plan with 30-day and 60-day milestones along the way increases your chances of success. But while these plans are great tools, direct reports will evaluate who you are and what you bring to the table long before you hit those milestones. Indeed, theyll make sticky evaluations of you from the very first conversation. Thats why I think you should have a Day 1 plan, or what I like to call a new-leader pitch.

Just as entrepreneurs need people and institutions with money to invest in their start-up ideas, leaders and managers need people with social and human capital to back them. How much support they get directly influences their effectiveness. The good news is, your immediate boss is already invested in you (she knows your background and hired you). But your direct reports havent voluntarily made the same investment at least not yet. And you should never assume that theyll automatically follow your lead just because you have the title of manager, vice president, or even chief fill-in-the-blank (that is, formal power). You must win them over, and you should have a strategy for doing so that you can translate into a cogent set of talking points that guide rather than script all your early conversations with them. If the group you manage is large, these discussions will probably begin with an all-staff meeting at which you introduce yourself, followed by individual meetings with your reports over the next several days.

To answer this question, I asked full-time professionals, via an online survey platform, what they would want to learn from their new leader in their first conversation. In total 278 people responded. Their average age was 36, and the group was approximately half men (53%) and half women (47%), made up mostly of college graduates (77%), and represented a wide range of industries, including telecommunications (14%), government (12%), health care or pharma (11%), education (11%), finance (10%), and manufacturing (10%). I purposely made the context a conversation rather than a presentation to allow respondents to offer what they personally would want to know rather than what they think others or their group might want. In my framework, I also incorporate other research my colleagues and I have conducted over the past decade on work relationships and new employee onboarding.

The respondents in the survey broke down fairly equally into two groups: warriors and worriers. Each group had a distinct set of concerns. Chances are, youll have some of each type among your reports, so youll need to figure out how to address both in your pitch. Lets look at what that entails:

Warriors evaluate your knowledge, competencies, experience (and whether its relevant), and leadership approach to see if they will support you. They want to know if you can handle the job and understand how to help them do theirs better or will just get in their way.

One warrior technical professional for a large high-tech firm, for instance, said that what he wanted to know from a new leader was have they actually done the job, or do they just think they know what the job requires. How willing would they be to get in the trenches and try out our job themselves? Another warrior who was a nurse said her biggest concern was whether the new leader really knows how to do my job. It is offensive to me that people who dont know my job try to make judgments.

Some new leaders might interpret this line of questioning as an attempt to undermine them, and although thats possible, warriors general intent is different. Employees reactions to a new leader usually are based on their experience with the most recent leader. While a warrior direct report might be happy to be rid of a less-than-stellar leader, he or she may still be rightly on edge about whether history may repeat itself with you. Indeed, the nurse went on to explain that all of this is important, because it has been a problem in the past.

Warriors also want to know if you will be an active, hands-on kind of leader. Ultimately, they want you to (as one professional put it) jump in and take responsibility to make sure the team is kept up-to-date, while shielding the staff when there are issues with upper management.

Worriers, in contrast, are more focused on whether youre a safe investment. One sales professional summed it up well when he said he wants a new leader to make us feel secure in our jobs and in the company. How can you set these reports at ease? Many of them ranked clarifying job expectations as the primary task of new leaders. Deep curiosity about the leaders plans for the future and next steps was also common (particularly in turnaround situations). I would like to know if they plan to make any changes, especially what changes would affect me, said one worrier. Last, the worriers also wanted insight into the new bosss leadership approach, but their concerns were slightly different from warriors. They wanted answers to questions like: What is her supervising style? Does she have an open-door policy? How does she want us to approach her with problems?

To address both groups, make sure your pitch provides information on competence and change, experience and expectations, and your overall leadership approach. Jonathan (a pseudonym), a global product development associate at a pharmaceutical company based in the Caribbean, described how a recently hired leader did all this in an initial conversation: The new leader reviewed his past accomplishments in significant detail. It was impressive. He laid out his approach to learning the priorities of the various departments. He also told me that although he would restructure the organization to support the business, jobs and opportunities would expand. No one would be fired, but everyone would need to interview again for positions. That first meeting left quite an impression, and I was excited to see what was to come. Although its true that the prospect of interviewing for positions might have alarmed some worriers, setting clear expectations settled the future for them.

The survey respondents also pointed out ways that new leaders can get off on the wrong foot and what they should be doing instead.

1. Dont overshare, but do relate to reports on a personal level.

Relationships with supervisors can be powerful motivators. Research shows that when a direct report has a strong connection with a leader, the report is more likely to identify with the organization, engage in creative behavior, and help others at work. As one professional said, a good connection with the boss helps with morale and teamwork.

Interestingly, another respondent, an IT consultant, provided nuanced guidance on how to create a productive connection. New leaders, he said, should tell me a small bit about their personal life; nothing too revealing, but enough to make them feel like an actual person. In short, do not get overly personal. Another professional went a bit further: I would like to know them more, not just about where they worked. If they could do anything in life besides what they are doing now, what would that be? Others said that sharing personal details helps a new leader be more relatable and to bond. It also may help lay the groundwork for later presenting your vision for change and continuity. And while it may seem as if relaying that vision right away will help you get your reports excited about you, you may not want to rush in. One professional underlined a preference for the new leader to wait to give the vision for the department once they know us, the staff, better.

2. Dont just share your rsum, but do tell them your story.

While warriors may be examining your experience and worriers may be wondering how it influences your approach to them, both groups want to know about your work history. However, they both want you to stake your claim as the new leader through your career story, or narrative. They want to know, for instance, why this particular job makes sense for you at this time. As one warrior said, I would like to know what led my supervisor to get into a role like this. We help hospices manage their patient care, and our company is only medium-sized and not wealthy. It takes a certain kind of person to give up money and work for a good cause.

Jonathans boss was able to provide a powerful and personalized career narrative. As Jonathan recalled, The new leader expressed his excitement with being here. He took the opportunity to share a bit about himself. He highlighted that his previous college athlete days provided him valuable lessons for his career and his daily drive. He related past successes in a similar role that he thought would translate to our organization.

In your narrative, you can and should project your story into the future. Indeed, several respondents wanted to know about a new leaders goals for the leadership position itself. A health care industry professional commented: I would like to know what their vision for the position entails and how this vision affects me personally. Employees also appreciate it when you explain why your new position is integral to your story and, most important, how your direct reports play a critical role in that story.

After all, everybody likes to be part of a story especially a success story. And if, as a new leader, you put some thought into how to make a good first impression on your reports and win their support, you can help them be part of yours.

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Stepping into a Leadership Role? Be Ready to Tell Your Story. - Harvard Business Review

Jurgen Klopp called him a modern-day great and Brendan Rodgers said he could be as good as Luis Suarez, but the forward is without a club at 30

For a year and a half after joining Liverpool in 2013, Daniel Sturridge looked like the best English striker in the Premier League.

Thirty-five goals between January 2013 and May 2014 told their own story. Sturridge was incisive, clever, technically superb and brimming with confidence.

In the six seasons since, Sturridge has scored just 23 more league goals. He has finished bottom of the Premier League with West Brom, won the Champions League with Liverpool, and been banned from football for betting offences.

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He has drifted to the sidelines, on the pitch and in the public consciousness.

At 30, he should be coming towards the end of his peak years, but he was never in the conversation for Englands squad for the postponed Euro 2020 Harry Kane, Marcus Rashford, Raheem Sterling and Jamie Vardy have grown beyond him while youngsters like Tammy Abraham and Dominic Calvert-Lewin have emerged in his wake.

Sturridge is used to being overlooked. As a youngster at Manchester City, he struggled to break into the first-team picture ahead of experienced - if goal-shy - operators like Rolando Bianchi, Darius Vassell and Benjani.

Sold to Chelsea a year after Man City were taken over in 2008, he took time to settle. His first two seasons brought 26 league appearances and just one goal before a productive loan spell at Bolton, but he burst into life under Andre Villas-Boas in 2011-12.

Thirteen goals that year was his best season to date by some distance, but his personal success was tainted. While he shone under Villas-Boas, the Blues struggledand the young Portuguese coach was sacked in early March.

Roberto Di Matteo came in and won Chelsea the Champions League, but Sturridges goals dried up; he scored just two more in the league and didnt feature in Europe beyond the quarter-final first-leg win at Benfica.

Sold midway through the following campaign, Sturridge immediately clicked at Anfield.

There were rumours Brendan Rodgers didnt want him at Liverpool.Regardless,the pair found a good relationship straight away and Sturridge was electric alongside Luis Suarez.

The pairs partnership was among the most potent the Premier League has seen, even if it was short-lived. They spent only one full season together, and almost fired Liverpool to the title in 2013-14. Suarez was the leagues top scorer with 31, Sturridge second with 21, and that wavy-armed celebration was near-ubiquitous.

"Daniel has a wonderful opportunity over the next few years to become world class, Rodgers said midway through that season.

He has every tool and every quality he needs to be as [good] as Luis Suarez. If he stays clear of injury and stays on the field he can achieve that.

Since leaving Liverpool in 2014, Suarez has scored 142 league goals for Barcelona, at one point serving as the tip of perhaps the greatest attacking trident the world has ever seen. In the same time, Sturridge's career has slipped through the cracks.

Hamstring injuries, hip injuries, knee injuries, ankle ligament injuries, calf injuries - his body just couldn't take the strain.

Jurgen Klopp realised quickly enough he couldnt rely on Sturridge to build a team around him. He still scored goals when he played, and he still performed for England his last-minute winner against Wales at Euro 2016 was a career highlight but his playing time dwindled.

The move to West Brom midway through 2017-18 was his last-chance saloon, a nothing-to-lose opportunity to put himself in the shop window.

Six goalless appearances and another two-month injury lay-off left the writing very much on the wall.

He left Liverpool as a free agent at the end of 2018-19 after watching from the bench as Liverpool won the Champions League. His manager had nothing but praise for him.

Daniel has earned the right to be considered a modern-day Liverpool great, I would think, Klopp said.

He came to the club while we were trying to rebuild and re-establish ourselves. Some of the goals he has scored for Liverpool were so, so, so important.

He is one of the best finishers I have ever seen in my life. He scores goals you think could and should not be possible.

Unexpectedly, Sturridge ended up moving abroad. He went to the Turkish Super Lig with Trabzonspor and found his goalscoring touch hadnt left him he rattled in seven goals in his first 16 games.

Then it all fell apart. A year previous, he had been banned from football for six weeks for breaching betting rules after telling his brother to bet on a possible move to Sevilla.

But the FA appealed the decision, and in March 2020, he was banned from football for four months. His contract at Trabzonspor was terminated the same day.

"Devastating for me, I'm absolutely gutted about it. My season's over, Sturridge said.

"I just want to say it's been a very long, drawn out process over the last couple of years, and difficult to concentrate on my football.

In the end, Sturridges ban hasnt been that dramatic, with global football largely suspended anyway. But it is hard to shake the idea it has spelled the end of his career at the top end of the game.

Originally posted here:
What has happened to Daniel Sturridge? Liverpool's 'world-class' striker banned from football and without a club - Goal.com

Working moms already face an enormous amount of pressure to juggle both work and home life. Throw in COVID-19 and the family all together under the same roof 24/7, and you have a recipe for a perfect storm.

In fact, 81 percent of employed moms said their ability to engage effectively at work has been negatively impacted by COVID-19, according to a new study by Bonnier Custom Insights, a division of Working Mother Medias parent company Bonnier Corporation. The survey was taken online by 549 of Working Mother readers from March 27 to April 9.

Over half of the respondents (55 percent) said they have trouble engaging effectively at work because they are experiencing anxiety or stress due to the current uncertainty in their personal life. And a significant portion of working moms, 27 percent, said their emotional state is currently terrible or poor.

They are worried for their children, their households and their careers, said Dr. Laura Sherbin, an economist and managing director of Culture@Work, a division of Working Mother Media.

At the household level, we observe significant challenges beyond just the logistical. Working parents and moms, who are lucky enough to have their job right now are unable to do what they need to do to deliver across multiple demands. Nearly half of working moms are sacrificing rest and sleep and are not experiencing support, she added.

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A similar poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation, conducted March 25 to 30 found nearly half of people in the U.S. say the pandemic has affected their mental health, with 19 percent reporting a major impact."

RELATED: 5 ways to curb coronavirus-related stress and anxiety

And the fallout from this stress and anxiety will make a big impact on the economy.

Sherbin estimated that working moms coronavirus-related anxiety will cost the economy a whopping $341 billion. She derived the number based on Gallup, which found that the cost of work disengagement is 34 percent of a persons salary. So, if there are 31 million working moms who make an average of $40,000, that equates to the $341 billion.

So, what can be done to help lower working moms stress and anxiety so they can be as productive as possible?

This is a big time for growth for everyone and the most important takeaway from this time is how we need to evolve and improve our lives, said executive career coach Liz Bentley, who is not affiliated with the study.

RELATED: On air and at home: How NBCU moms are juggling work, family while covering coronavirus

Bentley added, For women, this means it is finally time to divide the parenting and household responsibilities more clearly and with better boundaries. If women are working and also doing most of the caring for the children, they are unfairly sacrificing their careers. Instead, they need to create better boundaries and fight for equality in their relationship so that all of their work and worry is not on them.

Bentley said that working moms in return need to be willing to give up some of the control and allow their spouses to find their own way of doing things.

This will help everyone in the long run and will create a better family dynamic, career success for both parents equally and happier employers," Bentley said. "For so long, we have wanted more women in the boardroom and the C-suite and they cant get their without the support."

Employers can help too. Sherbin stressed management needs to proactively check in with their employees and offer targeted support.

At each team level, there needs to be a resetting of how work gets done with the assumption that this new normal isnt the old normal, just virtual, Sherbin noted. At the company level, offering tools and resources for those with existing and new mental health conditions is paramount to helping employees, and their companies, come out of this crisis.

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Working moms are struggling to engage at work and it will cost the economy $341B - NBC News

Germany has overseen the largest-scale coronavirus testing program in Europe, conducting 350,000 tests each week, detecting the virus early enough to isolate and treat patients effectively. In New Zealand, the prime minister took early action to shut down tourism and impose a month-long lockdown on the entire country, limiting coronavirus casualties to just nine deaths.

All three places have received accolades for their impressive handling of the coronavirus pandemic. They are scattered across the globe: one is in the heart of Europe, one is in Asia and the other is in the South Pacific.

But they have one thing in common: they're all led by women.

These countries -- all multi-party democracies with high levels of public trust in their governments -- have contained the pandemic through early, scientific intervention. They have implemented widespread testing, easy access to quality medical treatment, aggressive contact tracing and tough restrictions on social gatherings.

Take Taiwan, a democracy of almost 24 million people -- with roughly the same population as Australia -- off China's east coast. Taiwan is claimed by Beijing as its territory and shunned by the World Health Organization, so it should have been highly vulnerable to an epidemic originating in mainland China.

But when Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen heard about a mysterious new virus infecting the citizens of Wuhan in December last year, she immediately ordered all planes arriving from Wuhan to be inspected.

She then set up an epidemic command center, ramped up production of personal protective equipment such as face masks and restricted all flights from mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau.

Taiwan's early, aggressive intervention measures have limited the outbreak to just 393 confirmed infections and six deaths. The US State Department cites Taiwan's coronavirus success in calling for Taiwan to be given observer status in the WHO's World Health Assembly.

New Zealand is an island country of almost five million, which relies heavily on tourism.

But Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern shut New Zealand's borders to foreign visitors on March 19 and announced a four-week lockdown of the country on March 23, requiring all non-essential workers to stay at home except for grocery shopping or exercising nearby.

Iceland's Prime Minister Katrn Jakobsdttir governs a small, island country of only 360,000 people. But its large-scale, randomized testing of the coronavirus could have broad ramifications for the rest of the world, as it has found that around half of all people who test positive for the virus are asymptomatic. Iceland also intervened early, aggressively contact-tracing and quarantining suspected coronavirus cases.

Contrast these interventionist responses with Sweden -- the only Nordic country not led by a woman -- where Prime Minister Stefan Lfven refused to impose a lockdown and has kept schools and businesses open. There, the death rate has soared far higher than in most other European countries.

Other female heads of state have also made headlines through their tough response to the coronavirus. Prime Minister Silveria Jacobs of Sint Maarten governs a tiny Caribbean island of just 41,000, but her no-nonsense video telling citizens to "simply stop moving" for two weeks has gone viral around the world.

"If you do not have the type of bread you like in your house, eat crackers. If you do not have bread, eat cereal. Eat oats," she says emphatically.

Of course, South Korea's (male) President Moon Jae-in has deservedly received praise for flattening the curve of infections in his country through widespread testing. But many countries led by incompetent, science-denialist men have led to catastrophic coronavirus outbreaks.

That helped bring about the current emergency of over 25,000 coronavirus deaths and a half-million cases, which continue to mount each day.

Similarly, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson dismissed the severity of the public health crisis and refused to introduce restrictions on social gatherings long after other European countries went on lockdown. Before he was hospitalized with Covid-19, he told reporters that the virus would not stop him from shaking hands with hospital patients.

And the coronavirus would not have spread throughout the world as swiftly if Chinese President Xi Jinping had not allowed five million people to leave Wuhan before it went on lockdown.

It's too early to say definitively which leaders will emerge as having taken enough of the right steps to control the spread of coronavirus -- and save lives. But the examples above show that a disproportionately large number of leaders who acted early and decisively were women.

Yet, on January 1, 2020 only 10 of 152 elected heads of state were women, according the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the United Nations -- and men made up 75% of parliamentarians, 73% of managerial decision-makers and 76% of the people in mainstream news media.

It is long past time for us to recognize that the world is in dire need of more women leaders and equal representation of women at all levels of politics.

At the very least, the disproportionate number of women leaders succeeding in controlling this pandemic -- so far -- should show us that gender equality is critical to global public health and international security.

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Women leaders are doing a disproportionately great job at handling the pandemic. So why aren't there more of them? - CNN

April 15, 2020 6 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Its a troublesome time for everyone in the business world right now, particularly for those of us who own our own businesses. My business, Student Loan Planner, launched in 2016 and grown steadily over the past four years. However, as a CFA and former bond trader, I always knew the day would come when wed need to weather a storm.

Here are sixsmart money moves Im taking for my business right nowthat I suggest you do as well. You want to set your business and employees up for the best possible success as our country navigates this health and financial crisis.

This should be No. 1on your list before doing anything else I mention in this article. Under The Paycheck Protection Program, employers with less than 500 employees can access funding to cover up to eight weeks of payroll and certain other operating expenses. That gives you more cash to motivate and retain your team. Throw your hat into the ring like everyone else. You want this lifeline.

Related:How to Submit Your SBA PPP Loan Application and Calculate the Loan Amount

The U.S. Small Business Administration is providing low-interest working capital loans of up to $2 million. These loans are designed to provide economic support for small businesses that have lost revenue caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Check out your states programs for businesses. Many states are providing resources and support to small businesses. For example, California and Colorado have work-sharing programs that provide partial unemployment benefits as an alternative to layoffs. Lastly, for local business support, contact your local SBA office or Chamber of Commerce for additional resources specific to your area.

Most people are assuming they will be let go at this point. More than 6.6 million U.S. workers filed new claims for unemployment benefits last week, on top of 3.3 million a week earlier, which means if you can offer anything better than a layoff, your team will greatly appreciate it.

My company is trying toretain as many employees as we possibly can by cutting their hoursbut continuing to pay them something. Doing this means we can conserve cash but try to mitigate the psychological turmoil that comes from being furloughed or laid off completely.

Related:What Leaders Can Learn From Governor Cuomo About How to Communicate During a Crisis

Going this route also encourages employee loyalty your employees will always remember how you acted at this time. If you did everything you could to keep them on payroll during one of the biggest financial crises weve ever seen as a country, they'll support you too.

Your customers and clients are going to remember what you did right now for a very long time. How can you prioritizecustomer service and content at a time when they need it most,even if that means a loss in short-term revenue?

Right now, my company doesn't expect to make much money from the content we're producting in the short term, at least. From showing people how to get their seized tax refunds back if they're in default,to advice on how to cut their monthly payments, to demonstrating how to get loan forgiveness credit instead of refinancing, on which we make a commission.

Customers need guidance right now, and the best brand advertising you can do is to have them remember your company was there for them during this economic crisis.

Many businesses that were already in tenuous positions before the disease started spreading will likely not reopen. If you think about the supply-demand curve you probably learned in your Econ 101course in college, the supply curve probably shifts up and to the left after this because fewers businesses will exist to buy goods.

That means the quantity supplied of goods and services will be lower, and the price you can command will be higher. Meaning, if your company survives, having fewer businesses to compete with will mean higher profits for your company long-term. If your company is in a financial position that gives it a goodchance of surviving this crisis, implement this strategy into your long-term plan.

Related:Entrepreneurs Review the SBA PPP Loan-Application Processes

In addition, businesses have pulled back from paid advertising in a huge way thats a big opportunity if you have cash to burn. For example, say you know each of your email subscribers is worth $5 long-term because you sell a digital product. If the cost of acquiring one of these subscribers on Facebook was $2 but is now $1, you should be excited to spend that money right now. You can acquire these leads for 50 percentoff.

As a business owner particularly one who is trying to protect his or her employees from layoff youre going to take a hit to your personal finances right now. That's where an emergency cash fund comes in.In a recession, even if you have a stable job, you should have cash to cover six months of expenses on hand. If you have an economically sensitive job, it should be one year's worth. You need to include any required loan payments as part of this calculation.

As a business owner, conserving cash is everything right now. If you have to borrow money to get emergency savings, do it. You know how they say on planes that you must put your own oxygen mask on first before helping others around you? The same goes for your personal finances when you own your own business.

This is perhaps the most important tip I can give you right now. Youre not going to make the best financial decisions for your company if you dont take time to blow off steam and relieve anxiety. The worst thing you can do is sit down and stew about your business 24/7. Whether its watching Tiger King or Ozark on Netflix or taking a walk in nature, make sure to clear your head every day for the sake of your business and your own personal well-being.

Related:What the Entrepreneur Staff Is Doing to Stay Sane and Productive While Working From Home

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6 Smart Money Moves to Make Right Now as a Business Owner - Entrepreneur

Q: Im worried about whats next with this COVID-19 crisis. We dont know when the stock market will recover, when employers will rehire or when the curve will flatten. We dont even know when well be allowed to walk in our parks or spend time with family and friends. Ill have a job to go back to, but I dont know how this will affect my finances longer term. Can you offer some ideas on how to survive this financially?

A: These certainly are interesting times. But dont fight your fears and negative feelings. Instead, accept them because they are bang-on. We simply dont know what will happen, because its actually unknowable at least in the short-term.

But if you believe, like I do, that humankind will conquer the coronavirus, then it can inspire you to hope. And hope can inspire you to action. And with action, you can achieve your goals.

This isolation time has been forced upon us, but you can use it for the better. You can think, plan and act now to improve your financial future.

There are two schools of thought on how to attain financial success: spend less or save more. Its much tougher (and less pleasant) to decrease spending to create wealth. Saving to build wealth is much easier (and more enjoyable) and the easiest way to save more is to earn more and then invest to grow that money.

So, let me ask you, when the COVID-19 pandemic becomes history, what will you have done to set yourself up for financial success? Dont dare let yourself down by permitting this time to pass unproductively.

If you elect to earn (and then save) more money, how will you plan now to make that happen in the future, after the coronavirus crisis is resolved? Will you go back to the same job and the same financial situation? Or might you contemplate a career move or advancement? If so, you could study online for a diploma through Mohawk College. Or simply read a number of ebooks to develop specific skills. You could take some notes from a video course and email them to your employer on how to make his or her business more profitable. Ill promise you theyll be impressed and may even offer you a raise when you are rehired.

Maybe youll investigate additional part-time employment or a side gig to complement your earnings from your job. Or perhaps youll explore becoming self-employed and starting your own business. Regardless of the means, now is the time to learn as much as you possibly can about how to earn more money to enhance your financial future.

This current worldwide situation might feel unsettling. Just the same and in spite of it make this COVID-19 crisis a distinct financial turning point in your life, for the better. I promise you that a time will come when youll look back on this with either a sense of accomplishment ... or a sense of regret. You can choose to take control of your financial success, even during this crazy situation.

I would never have wished this global health calamity upon you, me, or the world, but we have it. We dont know when companies around the globe will recover; but we know that they will. We dont know when jobs will return; but we know that they will. We dont know when the coronavirus curve will flatten; but we know that it will. And we know that well be allowed to walk in our parks and spend time with our family and friends. But I also know that it will be up to you, and how you use your time today, to determine if you will survive or thrive financially.

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Where will you be, financially, when this crisis ends? - TheSpec.com