The last couple of years have been both challenging and rewarding for Dive. The expansion of Dive to other countries has brought a lot of excitement in terms of working with new team members and meeting new clients. But it has also been a hectic time, involving uncertainty and insecurity. 

We believe our most prominent strengths in these times have been calmness, openness, flexibility, support, fact reaction and the inner knowledge that it will all be fine in the long term. 

By calmness I mean keeping our heads cool. This is crucial when you get hit from different directions. While panicking we lose the ability to see the big picture, so we just analysed the situation emotionlessly and acted fast according to a motto that when something is heading to south, it’s a right moment to cut your losses and move on. 

Being open is also very important in tough times because people can feel when you hide relevant information. Knowing this, we never garnished the situation in front of our teams. We told the facts and put our heads together to brainstorm how to survive this period. We focused on the emotional aspects, as financially we couldn’t do much when faced with lockdown and no ability to do our everyday work. Our solution was intensifying online meetings amongst team members and organising online board game events and dinners by ordering courier delivery to everyone. By doing that we maintained team spirit and soon team members themselves were initiating the review of internal processes in the company, to get even stronger for the future.

Once our mental health and stability had been secured, we focused on clients and business. Our aim was to be supportive and creative. We offered to evaluate online channels instead of physical visits,, and to extend and change agreement dates and rules, which allowed them to pick up the cooperation once it became possible. This helped us secure our own position by not letting clients cancel the cooperation agreement too easily. 

We also encouraged people to use the sudden free time to focus on themselves. As a part of this, we suggested books and free/small fee online courses. Taking part of the MSPA online events also had a positive effect as people can see and feel that they’re not alone in the situation. 

And last but not least, we just put extra attention to sharing whatever positive news we had to spread a good vibe. Either the sun started to shine more and more in spring, or an important client came back or the government took a decision to support our business sector - you know, small things to lift the spirit. 

I would like to believe the hardest times are over and that the wisdom we got will help us all through whatever life throws at us. But most of all, let’s stay positive and trust that the world has so much good to offer us. 

By Kerli Soosaar, Co-Founder at Dive Group