“Fatigue is what we experience, but it is what a match is to an atomic bomb.” Laura Hillenbrand

A rush of adrenalin fuelled leaders’ response to the first wave of Covid disruption. Almost overnight, business leaders re-engineered entire operating models, customer relations and people practices. It was tough, although strangely exciting at times, as leaders implemented emergency measures, at lightning speed. One year on from the start of the pandemic, leaders are fatigued.

‘When Lockdown 1 began, we had no idea we’d still be operating like this a year later.  I remember even joking about it, telling my team it would just be a case of getting by for a few months…’

I’ve had many coaching conversations like this over the past few months, made harder by winter lockdowns and uncertainty about re-opening roadmaps across Europe. This very acute business leadership crisis has been exacerbated by the ever-present existential threat to life, livelihoods and wellbeing. There are leaders who have lost people to Covid, or who have experienced health stresses directly or indirectly, be that from caring for vulnerable relatives or home-schooling for months on end.

‘I’m running out of energy to keep my team motivated…we haven’t met in person for a year…and I have new team members I haven’t been in the same room with yet – it’s hard to get to know them. I feel we’re missing out with customers too, there’s no opportunity to develop new trusted relationships. The last year has been hard, but the one ahead looks tough too!’.

As Spring is springing and the hope of vaccine rollouts brings re-opening onto the horizon, many leaders I speak to are quietly fatigued, worn out, lacking inspiration and energy reserves to ‘go again’ after a year of years. If you’re feeling the same, it’s essential you take steps to secure your own resilience:

1. PAUSE – when your calendar looks like a brick wall, with no daylight shining through, and you hear yourself saying ‘I’m back-to-back’, it’s time to apply the emergency handbrake and take stock. Make sure you build in some pauses in your working patterns, at least 10 minutes buffer between calls, and be firm on your start and finish boundaries. You’ll also set a healthy example to others.

2. MOVE – Would you strap in for an 8-12 hour long haul flight five days in a row? Of course not! Re-imagine your working environment (especially if it’s a homeworking one) to stimulate movement, standing and walking around, and encourage your colleagues to do the same.

3. PHONE – It is completely unnatural to converse fully face on with another person through a screen for hours on end. If you know the person you’re meeting, use the telephone for a more thoughtful and mindful conversation where both of you are free to roam as you talk.

4. SHARE- Do not go forward alone. The most courageous step you can take is to involve a trusted colleague, mentor, counsellor or coach to help you take stock of what your priorities really need to be, and how to ensure your own wellbeing.  

5. INVOLVE - I repeatedly hear of team members calling out for more input to shaping new directions. Remember – good leaders create leaderful teams of highly capable people – it’s amazing what people can deliver if you get them involved early.

6. SLEEP – Psychological studies over the past year indicate that sleep patterns have been widely disrupted throughout lockdown. If this is you, put a plan in place to increase your daily exercise, and clearly cut off your working time with two or three hours without work before bedtime.

Leadership is a long haul. Whilst it takes sharp responsiveness in times of crisis, it also requires thoughtfulness to re-imagine how teams, businesses and markets can thrive again. If you’re feeling fatigue one year one, you are not alone. Taking a physical and metaphorical breath is the very best step you can take to re-energise yourself, and essential before you attempt to re-energise your team.

“Regeneration: The ability to refresh, restore and innovate across many dimensions and over time”. Paul Miller and Shimrit James – The Nature of Work 2021.

As an ancient Buddhist proverb reminds us, ‘when you’re ready to learn, the teacher will appear.’

I’ve had the opportunity to learn from so many inspiring, insightful people over the years, and was humbled to be invited to share some of my own life lessons in two recent podcasts.

Firstly, with revenue accceleration specialists, durhamlane, in which I reflect on the particular challenges of ensuring good mental health in the pressure cooker environment that there can be in Sales. Listen here to the candid discussion with Luke Robinson where we explore the simple and bigger steps that can be taken to make the Sales profession a more psychologically safe one.

Secondly, the passionate movement that is Northern Power Women, unbowed and undeterred by any set-back or challenge, always focused on finding a way forward for female leadership. In NPW’s latest podcast, Simone Roche and Sam Walker explore some pithy aspects of how to deal with uncertainty and #buildbackbetter.

Thank you to both organisations for enabling me to distil and share my experience.

“All things share the same breath - the beast, the tree, the man... the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports.”

- Chief Seattle

Right now, with our recently adopted Pandemic modus operandi, the idea of ‘sharing the air’ with other people might fly in the face of all logic! For the many who have the facilities to be able to conduct our work virtually, from home, I need not add to the many words written on ‘WFH’, ‘Zoom fatigue’, yada yada. Yet, when I listen to the rhetoric about a future where everyone who can, works from home almost permanently, I fear that we are factoring out all that it means to be humans at our best – with movement, variety, creativity, spontaneity, emotional intelligence, self-awareness and flow.

Basecamp founder Jason Fried, is renowned for his TED Talk, ‘Why Work doesn’t get done at Work’ and his rallying cry in his book Remote, for the work from home movement. Meanwhile, Paul Miller of Digital Workplace Group has recently published some hopeful insights in his podcast ‘Will we ever work again?’ This thinking isn’t new, as Jessica Lipnack and her research on Virtual Teams was first conducted during the noughties. All challenge assumptions that we need to be in a central workplace, to work effectively.

‘Sharing the Air’ is a phrase adapted from Japanese, meaning a person’s ability to interpret the many non-verbal signals emitted when two or more people meet in person. Whilst our contemporary video-conferencing and team tech is better than ever, we must not lose sight of our human need to share the same space with others, to interact in the natural and multi-sensory dynamics of human interaction.

Ancient wisdom and human evolution have designed us to be social creatures, in the anthropological sense. For some cultures this is still a defining element of behavioural norms today. For instance, Erin Meyer describes in her book on cross cultural dynamics, Culture Map, how high context cultures in the Eastern hemisphere rely on people being able to interact in the same physical space, to pick up all the indirect communication nuances that can only be detected when we are face to face.

As communities across the Globe grapple with how to make sharing the air, a safe and proper thing to do again, we have a golden opportunity to really challenge what will make sharing inside and outside spaces worthwhile again. 

As you contemplate this for yourself, your family, your team, your customers or your organisation, here are some thought starters to test your creativity when re-building physically and psychologically safe shared work spaces of the near future.

• How might we re-design the jobs people are hired to do so that they can play to their strengths? Do we really need to measure work input in hours or days of presence in a chair, or at a workstation, whether virtual or otherwise, how about we start tracking output instead? How could the Job Crafting movement build on traditional job design so that we play to emerging strengths in a team, not just carbon copy job descriptions?

• How might we utilise the internal and external work-spaces to make them as appealing to be in as those we might pay to visit for leisure? What can be achieved if work ‘places’ designed for creative, problem solving interactions, rather than places to simply log on to workstations?

• How might we design better ergonomics for people who need to do front-line work, physical work or caring work? This is the moment to bring in human-centred design and UX expertise into your teams, for both physical and digital workplace re-design.

• How might we create more trusted interactions during the next 18 months, whilst we get to grips with how life and work needs to operate with distance, health and hygiene at the core? Really think about how often video is needed. Sometimes a good old-fashioned phone delivered with excellent deep listening skills, is far more enriching than a jerky video.

As humans we need social interaction to thrive, so keep your eyes on the horizon for a future where we do meet again, and with renewed appreciation of being able to safely share the air together. 

“I could sit in my office and do videoconferences nearly anywhere in the world, but because that is so easy, people actually expect you to show up more, to make the effort and demonstrate the respect, to sit across the table and look eye-to-eye.” - Hillary Clinton

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]]>Sharing the AirAlison FreerWed, 15 Apr 2020 15:27:13 +0000https://www.thinkfreer.com/blog/crucible-moments5e8c84e4a9fc750c8a5121ea:5e8c89455f00172e5a61992f:5e970e7db990fc5b6c5d0556

“Difficult as it may seem to believe, any crucible moment for leaders can serve as the test that becomes their pivotal swing toward success or failure.” Steven J Bell

Crucibles are vessels for molten metal that form objects of great power and beauty - they require intense heat to be effective.

Just as you may recall with great clarity where you were on 9/11, major life events lead us to reframe what’s important, and how we view risk or opportunity. Whether it’s a global pandemic, bereavement, loss of earnings, health or business dreams, these events are tough at a very personal level. No amount of positive psychology may sugarcoat the fact that seriously testing times lie ahead.

It’s times like these that make us, and that test us to the hilt. In his book ‘How to Develop Character’, Simon Hartley analyses the fortitude and determination of POWs. There may be tales of your forebearers, your family heroes that have amazed you. Today’s reality now presents an extreme test of our own mettle as leaders, citizens, parents, partners and entrepreneurs.

The Elizabeth Kubler-Ross Loss Curve is a staple leadership coaching framework, often applied to change management. In crucible moments however, the speed of the loss can be sudden and unfathomable, revealing unique and unforeseen challenges. Whilst Kubler-Ross presents her research as ‘stages’ of loss through to renewal, the reality is more likely that we will rapidly switch between the ‘states’ of grief as we comprehend and adapt to the sudden new realities.

Whatever your sphere of leadership, and whatever your stage of life or career, it’s highly likley that 2020 will turn out to be one of your crucible moments. As you grapple with how best to respond to stress, worry, anger, panic or any other ‘dark’ emotional reactions, first of all acknowledge, you are being human.

In what Anita Mountain refers to as The Winner’s Triangle, acknowledgeing your own vulnerability as a leader is step one in making it through. You wisely learn that the heat is intense, and you need to simply do something - as to do nothing is the greater risk. Outside of high stakes settings such as the Military, Health and Social Care, few business leaders are drilled for crucible moments. Here are a few words from the wise:

1. Ground yourself - apply your own safety mask first, (or the metaphorical version of it). Without some self-care now, you will collapse as we move away from crisis mode into the planning ahead phase.

2. Act with speed - sometimes threats (and opportunities) move far quicker than convention - better to take some imperfect decisions now, than none at all.

3. Be in it for the long haul - plan coping strategies that can become maintenance strategies for a long haul (up to 18 months). Pace, not haste, is required.

4. Conduct a ‘pre mortem’ - as a check on any big decisions you take now. Will you be satisfied with your decisions today, 12 months on?

5. Trust in the resilience of others - care for others you must, although do not smother them. Shield others only from real harm and enable other forms of character to emerge, perhaps from unexpected players, young or old, familiar or new.

“Character is formed in the stormy billows of the world.” Goethe

Thank you to everyone who has helped me learn from my crucible moments. What will shape you through yours?

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