All in Personal Codes
It’s the one question that everyone wants answered.
When are we getting back to normal? When will Business As Usual return? Or, if you're really trying to be thoughtful: When do we get to the New Normal?
Aside from the fact that no one has the answers to those questions, there are two realities that are more relevant, at least to me:
One of the interesting byproducts of our COVID quarantine has been the amount of art that’s been created during this lockdown. And by art, I don’t just mean painting or music, what we consider to be art in the strict sense (although I do include both of those forms in my definition).
Rather, I’m referring to all forms of expression, any act of creativity, including the culinary arts.
This month's podcast draw lessons from the world around us, specifically the sports and entertainment arenas. I focus on specific games or movies or entertainers and the lessons we can draw from what they've done or experienced or said.
In today's podcast, I go back to Super Bowl 51 and the amazing comeback that the New England Patriots made in that game, and what it can teach us all about perseverance and achievement in the face of the worst possible odds.
You are not the hero.
That’s right, you’re not. And the sooner you get used to that idea, the better.
You’re not the one who’s going to move the customer’s business across the line. You’re not the one who’s going to help them gain extra market share. And you’re certainly not the one who’s going to achieve their vision for them.
There’s a quote I close all of my personal podcasts with that’s always appealed to me. I wrote about it in one of my earliest blog posts and it’s guided almost all of my decisions in life:
“You’re better off scared than bored.”
It isn’t my quote - I first heard it from Harvey Mackay in his book, Beware The Naked Man Who Offers You His Shirt. (And, for the record, the exact quote is, “You’re a lot better off being scared than bored”.)
Today’s podcast is about what we do when we’re trying to get ourselves back on our feet, when we’re going through hard times and we need to re-center - as an individual or as a business.
It’s about the value of First Principles and the kinds of things we need to consider, understand and adopt when we're navigating a crisis.
So in recent weeks, I’ve hosted or moderated virtual webinars, panel discussions and happy hours with people all across the world (separate from the countless virtual one-on-ones and small group meetings that have become such a mainstay for us all now).
I approached these events with some trepidation, unsure of the how the back and forth that’s necessary would happen in the virtual world, given the normal back and forth of in-person conversation (versus the sequential nature of videoconference technology) or the pronounced nature of (awkward) silence in such settings, especially ones where not everyone knows each other.
In today's podcast, I continue this month's riff on uncertainty and risk, and talk about change. It's a topic that we all have to deal with, whether we like it or not.
Change is a critical part of our growth and how we deal with it is make or break. This episode discusses the two key steps that I believe we need to take to tackle the change we see in our lives, head on.
The world has changed! The old order is out! Things will never go back to the way they were!
There’s no shortage of pronouncements about how the coronavirus has fundamentally changed the way we live, work and play. No more cruises, no more constant flying, no more of the large scale social gatherings that we’ve become so accustomed to. It’s (apparently) a whole new world out there.
And so it goes with Working From Home (WFH).
When we went through the Great Recession of 2008/2009, I remember thinking to myself (perhaps consoling myself) that I would never see an economic downturn as bad as that ever again in my lifetime. I mean, the scale of the trouble at the time was such that multiple markets around the world, multiple sectors, multiple categories, all got hit at once, and the resultant economic malaise took years to overcome. Surely, something at that scale could never happen again?
Well, never say never, I guess.
Episode 29 of the podcast is now available. Today’s episode is about the concept of "productive struggle", this idea that our success in life is based on our ability to work through difficult issues and problems without knowing or having the path handed to us.
Many times, I think we’re so beholden to other people’s expectations of us, that instead of doing what we really want to do, we constrain ourselves with someone else’s expectations of us.
But it’s actually worse than that. More often than not, it isn’t actually what they expect of us, it’s our perception of their expectations of us.
I’ve written before of my distaste for meetings (here, here and here) and specifically, meaningless meetings that should actually have been emails or a phone chat - or none of the above!
I’ve seen companies where meetings are the norm and the work of actually getting things done (time for deep thinking or focused work) becomes the exception, something that gets done after-hours (or worse, not at all). In fact, I’ve often wondered if there’s a correlation between the percentage of time that executives spend in meetings and the performance of the company.
Episode 28 of the podcast is now available and this week, I tackle a topic that we all grapple with, something we all need to deal with and manage at one point or another - worry and how to get beyond it.
In times of uncertainty, we want to look for comparisons. Situations that are analogous to what we’re going through so that we can identify trends or find indicators - some sort of sign(s) - that allow us to better predict what’s going to happen. It’s a natural thing to do. We want comfort. We want certainty. We want to see a way out.
But, of course, that’s not how things work.
For every comparison to previous pandemics, there are several others that can point to how this one is different.
That’s a word we love. It’s also a word that we tend to hold to a specific standard.
Superhuman strength. Incredible bravery. Folks who demonstrate those traits are called heroes. The determined doctors, the brave firefighter, the courageous police officer tend to fit the bill.
We can accept that. Because that individual put themselves at risk for the betterment and gain of another, almost always someone they don’t even know.
Episode 27 of the podcast is now available and today I close out this month’s focus on Management Consulting war stories by talking about Starbucks Lemon Loaf Incident - an incident that taught me a little bit more about this idea of character and who we are.
I don’t think there is anything or anyone that operates at one polar extreme versus another. Sure, some folks veer more in one direction than another, but rarely, always and only at the extremes.
But you wouldn’t think so from most of the public rhetoric which, by definition, is driven by a desire for attention and alignment (with a predefined ideology - ours or someone else’s).
It seems to me that there are two kinds of people when the going gets tough. Those who panic and freeze. And those who manage their emotions and keep doing. This latter group is the group I think we all want to be part of.
Now, note that I didn’t say they stay calm, rather that they manage their emotions. Getting emotional and stressing out is, at least to me, a pretty natural human emotion. I’m not sure we can completely eliminate that response reflex. But I do think we can learn to manage those emotions, and thereby keep them in check.
If there’s one thing that social distancing has re-emphasized, it’s the power and value of social connection. That community matters - and not only does it matter but it’s, frankly, more important than it ever has been. We’re all experiencing that, regardless of whether or not we’d conceptually bought into the idea before.
In fact, I’ve been heartened by the virtual outreach that I’ve seen everywhere - from family to friends to celebrities, in real life and across social media.
