Hey There,
Here I am with my monthly short, hope it goes well with your coffee/tea break.
What am I thinking about? like many of us...what can we do when things go out of control? Does it sound familiar right now?
When I woke up the morning of January 2020, it felt right: “it is my year, 2020 is my year. I will have the book published I will have more speaking gigs all around the US, and I am already coaching the people I want, executive, 2020 will defiantly be a great year.”
But for some reason, the end of February after a great beginning of the year, things started having a twist: snowstorm canceled an event, every problem possible to publish my book happened, which brought me into tears of frustration and now some March and April speaking events are being rescheduled because of the coronavirus. So rather than sitting and ranting, I decided that I am going to write this because it seems like the coronavirus, like business and leadership and life in general, throws on our way the unexpected which makes us feel out of control. When people start their business or step into a new leadership role, they think they figured it out – I am going to do it on my own I am here because I figured everything out, and I am ready to do this S#!^ with no problem! But then they realize that most of the stuff they learned on their MBA or leadership program didn’t prepare them for many of the challenges they will encounter in real life; people who will stand in their way, ideas that they thought will work and they didn't, a presentation they have worked on until they felt they nailed it, but was still not clear and left the wrong impression on the CEO.
The corona is a reminder that we can’t control everything, I see leaders who need to learn to manage remotely for the first time and feel like they are losing control on their team, I see people afraid that they might lose their business because they can’t travel and sell their product, and there is just fear in general as happened to one of my clients who called with me from the CVS parking lot after trying to find sanitizer for their family with no success….
In my book, I talk about the phase of AwareMess – when we learn about a blindspot, something we didn't know we do or missed seeing, and started working on that area to become the person we want. AwareMess is when we are trying to figure out how to move from point A to the desired –– point B. If we go back to the sanitizer, my client knew she probably wouldn’t find it at CVS. Like many of us, she will need to figure out a new way to sanitize her hands. Some were fast and bought alcohol and Aloe Vera gel to make their own, but now when those materials are out of stock, how are we going to figure out how to protect ourselves? AwareMess is that space where we are willing to do everything to figure out a solution to take care of our family and ourselves – there have to be a solution and you will be willing to get messy until you figure it out! What’s good about this phase is that survival will push us to let go of doing things correctly and experiment and be creative. I can’t wait to see what will show up soon to win the sanitizer shortage.
In moments of no control, like the one, we have right now with the coronavirus. Take a moment and ask yourself: what is it right now in this crazy situation when I feel I am losing control in so many ways – what is it that I can learn from this experience?
What it is I can learn from seeing my team not communicating with me when we move to remote communication? How can I make it as an opportunity to grow my leadership? For example? If you plan to move into more leadership roles, you probably will find yourself leading teams all around the world and will step into leading remotely. So can try and control your team, or you can realize you have never had the need to communicate this way and will need to create with them a new form of communication and even set some boundaries to the how-tos.
So what is one thing you think you were meant to learn from this crazy time in our life?
Oh! and you can book my book - click here - no better time to relax with a good book than now ;-)