“That’s so March 2020!”
Say it with me, in your best exasperated fashionista and top it off with an eye roll. What other reaction can you have when someone is extolling the virtues of an out-of-date business practice?
These last six months have felt like a lifetime unto themselves. From a business standpoint, many organizations had to pivot or die. Some of them floundered in the process. Others found themselves rewriting the future of their employee’s growth and careers for the greater good.
Circumstance has forced us to compel them to change course, learn new skills, help us find a path to survival, or find other employment. Corporate survival must take precedence over individual growth and development to ensure there are jobs for the future.
I’ve spent a good portion of a 40-year career teaching managers how to operationalize empathy for those they manage and lead. Good coaches get to know their workers as human beings, not just human resources. Many organizations had to face a reality of putting those corporate needs at the absolute forefront beginning in April 2020. When we’re manning the lifeboats, impassioned commands are needed to get everyone to safety.
With the supply and demand ratio for talent skewed heavily in their favor over the last decade or so, labor has been large and in charge. Management has sought education and counsel on how to inspire and engage employees on an almost spiritual level. After all, it’s been said that if Millennials don’t believe in the gallant mission of your business organization they won’t come or stay.
The tides have turned and may not turn back for the foreseeable future. Heroic efforts were made, but the full weight of a sustained economic slowdown will soon rest firmly on our shoulders. Some businesses have already failed. Others will undoubtedly follow suit.
It’s the great many in the middle whose fate rests on their ability to rapidly reconfigure and rally. Individuals who can’t find a way to contribute in the new pivots must be quickly identified and may need to find their preferred opportunities elsewhere. And good luck to them. Those who stay need a personalized rapid retooling plan that they sign in blood and execute as if their jobs depend on it…. because it absolutely does.
Don’t get me wrong. We must continue to ask about personal challenges, dreams or aspirations of our besieged workforce. I’m saying that those personal goals will likely need to take a distant back seat to the immediate needs. When it is time to get in the lifeboats, I can’t care that your preference of life jacket is red over orange. “This is what I have for you. Now, please grab an oar!”
How can you adjust your Coaching to keep up with this Post 4/20 Challenge?
Channel Your Inner Kennedy: Ask not what your company can do for you. Ask what you can do for your company. Identify leaders who are willing to do whatever it takes to help the team win.
Self-Survival: When experiencing extreme turbulence, oxygen masks will deploy. Apply your mask before helping others apply theirs. In order to be of assistance to anyone, you must first be capable of doing so. Show by the courage of example what must be done to help yourself and others.
Go Sugarless: When you need people to make fundamental changes to avoid disaster, there is little room for frilly words or naïve optimism. Avoid sugar coating bad news or waiting to request change until there is absolute certainty of failure. We’ve all got to learn to live with the bitter taste of 2020.
Pivot and Pivot Again: Don’t expect your first ideas for reconfiguration to be either successful or sufficient. If you get lucky on a first attempt, congratulations! The bigger the disruption, however, the larger and more frequent the changes that are required to cope with it.
Struggling to stay efficient through the ongoing crisis that is 2020? Looking for a speaker that can connect and guide your leadership group? Gary crafted Coaching Through Crisis specifically to help any organization deal with chaos, internally or externally. Schedule your virtual interactive presentation today.
Garold (Gary) Markle is the creator of Catalytic Coaching and author of Catalytic Coaching: The End of the Performance Review. He brings real world experience from 17 years in HR leadership in major corporations coupled with 20 years of teaching small and mid-sized organizations how to cultivate their leadership and ditch their detrimental performance reviews for a proven Coaching process.
Book Gary to speak to your audience about speeding your pace of significant change.
Connect with him on LinkedIn - Check out his videos on YouTube - Sign up for emails or Request information - Follow on Facebook
