Dear Help Please,
As pandemic restrictions are decreasing and businesses are opening to more in-person activity, a lot of leaders like you are wrestling with what to do next. It’s likely questions like these are pinging around in your head:
Is it better to have people come back together at work or do we let them continue to work from home?
Do we encourage people to get vaccinated or simply live with what people decide to do?
Can people feel safe coming to work or will they feel threatened?
Can people meet the requirements of the job, or are we going to have to let them go?
We run a lot of meetings. We’ve learned to steer away from questions like these because life is more complicated than just two choices. And no matter how well you phrase a two-choice question to a group of people, it’s likely half the group will be ticked off at the other side’s answer. Close elections, anyone?
As we shift forward into what will be, many people are dealing with a more complicated reality. Some are thrilled to send their kids back to school. Some are grieving the loss of their partners, parents, or friends. Some may be realizing their job has changed. Some adapted under COVID conditions and have blossomed from what they’ve learned.
Your team is asking how you’ll work together going forward? Here’s a three step process to plan together what’s next in this hybrid space:
1. Get as clear as possible about your organization’s mission and purpose
You’ve done amazing work to carry your business to this point. That you’re planning on how to deal with the new reality means you’ve adapted and survived. This is worth celebrating! And after you’ve toasted to your team, it’s time to sit down together and really ask a few important questions:
What is our mission and purpose in this new reality?
How do the changes of last year continue to mean for the clients we serve and what we offer in the marketplace?
What roles do my employees and I need to play in working towards our mission, together?
It’s important to remember your business model isn’t your purpose. Models can change, and missions can shift. Hopefully your purpose is still showing through what you want to achieve together.
When you get clear on these answers, you can then start to explore how you want to work together.
2. Make what’s next adjustable
You’ve never exited a pandemic before as a team. There is no perfect answer here.
As a young man, I worked under a cabinetmaker and was cutting walnut plywood for a modern, sleek display table. After I had wasted a couple sheets trying to make a perfect angled cut, my boss tapped me on the shoulder.
“Chris, I’ve learned you have two choices - make it perfect or make it adjustable. Me? I’ve not figured out how to make my work perfect yet, so I just make it adjustable.”
Then he walked off.
I found some solid walnut stock and made angled corners that could adjust to cover up the ragged plywood edges.
Once you are clear on what you are working on together, set up plans you can all commit to.
Meet with your team and uncover:
What would excellent look like here?
What’s the first thing we would see that would let us know we’re on the right track?
How long will it take for us to see success or failure?
What can we do next to start making this happen?
Write all this down so we can chart our results and adjust as we get into action.
3. Run your experiments
Up to now we responded to situations outside our control. We are experts at adjusting and tweaking our behaviors in response to regulations, safety protocols, and caring for our people.
Now is the time for us to take control and run the experiments we just designed together.
A common continuous improvement model is Plan-Do-Check-Adjust.
You built the plan, so get into action, check your results, and adjust as necessary to hit your targets.
Maybe you’ll figure out your pick-your-three-days a week in the office plan is causing a lot of missed connections and will shift to one or two specific days everyone’s together. Maybe you’ll find the business can be fully successful with less office space. Maybe you figure out some team meetings are actually more effective on Zoom.
By consciously deciding what to do, taking action, and adjusting to get better results, you and your team will continue building confidence and success in whatever new reality is on its way.
Have fun!
There’s a whole new world emerging and leaders continue to have the opportunity to create teams that can do great things together. Let’s set up a time to talk about what experiments you can run in the next few months.
