Alright, the red flag has already been waved. Time for everyone to stop racing and hit the pits.
What are you going to do with your unscheduled downtime?
It’s expensive to take your car out of a race to maintain and improve it. Less so, however, if the race is temporarily halted. Under those conditions, the relative expense of retooling is much less.
For example, I’ve needed to write a second book for many years. The literary mainstay of my business is now 20 years old.
I’ve actually planned to take off to produce it more than once. My publisher has pleaded with me to do so, but the opportunity cost is enormous. Each time, in the 11th hour I’ve aborted scheduled maintenance and elected to keep driving. It never seemed right to pause for more than ultra-rapid fuel replacement and mandatory tire swaps. The damaged front end and overtaxed gearbox would just have to hold.
It’s a financial decision. If it took me the same amount of dedicated focus to write the 2.0 version of my book as it took to create the original, a rough guesstimate is that it would reduce top line income for my small company by perhaps a quarter million dollars. Yes, I realize that over time it might prove a relative bargain to go offline for half a year to write. Book sales and increased attention in a new title should, eventually, earn back some of those temporary losses. I just haven’t had the guts to make the pit stop and do it.
Enter The Virus! Suddenly there’s a new reality. Potential losses calculated on business-as-usual no longer apply. During this global pandemic, both travel and public gatherings, the bedrock of most speaking and consulting practices, have all been cancelled or postponed. A potential silver lining is that opportunity costs have become significantly less. A pit stop just got cheaper.
Let’s do the math based on our new temporary normal. Say it took six months to write another book. Average up your income for six months and I doubt I’m alone in not being able to afford to write the next literary masterpiece.
What if with cessation of travel and cancellation of most public gatherings due to quarantine, we’re looking at a full 90-day hiatus of business as usual? That means we’re not really losing six months of normal income. It’s something much less. And, with so much forced downtime, perhaps I could even get the book written more quickly. What if I could have a great book to the publisher in four months with a net financial impact of just one? Is it worth trying now?
Here’s another element of the pit stop gamble. Yes, I could write a new book. And, yes, this time is now less costly. But, writing the book takes time away from other maintenance/upgrade opportunities open to me in my government-mandated quarantine. I could use the same time to go virtual and retool my existing material for delivery online. If I spend six months writing a book but while I’m down the entire world shifts permanently and completely to online delivery of training material that I am still planning to deliver live, I could find myself restarting my business in a big hole behind new internet-ready competitors. The rest of the world switched tracks while I was preparing to begin racing again on a track where no one remains. They used their pit stop more wisely.
The best decision for each racer depends on their ability to successfully imagine the future. Will people eventually return to in-person meetings, or will public gatherings remain suppressed for an extended time? Will online training delivery finally and fully cannibalize live training? Or will the pent-up feelings of isolation lead to crowded stadiums full of people who want to return to a more intimate tribal tradition? As for me, I am betting the latter, but what do you think? Make your choice and plan your red flag reaction accordingly.
So, how can you best leverage your unplanned pit stop?
1. Imagineer a Silver Lining: Picture yourself two years from now engaged in a conversation wherein you are saying to someone, “You know, the Covid-19 virus of 2020 actually had one big positive impact for our company. Without it, we’d never have taken the downtime to _____________________. And, the decision to do that has led us to our new Happy Place ____________________. I guess that was our silver lining.”
2. Make it Personal: Not every pit stop has to be dedicated to making your car go faster. And not every silver lining outcome has to be business-related. Consider your health. What if you used the quarantine period to finally launch a much-needed diet that allows you to get off blood pressure pills? This pit stop could literally save your life!
3. Repair Relationships: There is nothing like a crisis to bring families together. Why wait for a funeral to teach us that even longstanding, deep-seated disagreements and grievances are relatively inconsequential? What if you emerged from quarantine with a renewed commitment to your marriage? A greater appreciation for your troubled sibling? A tighter bond with your mother or daughter?
4. Focus on Others: It’s not all about you. If you and your family are safe, how can you help distressed people, animals or organizations? What can you contribute to the community in its time of need? Healthcare workers and those who must work to deliver critical services are compelled to risk their own safety to do so, but there are a million ways to volunteer. There is nothing more comforting or self-nurturing than to provide essential support to others less fortunate. Reduce your stress by helping others reduce theirs.
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.
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