What a year. It all started so well. I had heaps of plans up my sleeve to help clients. And then everything changed. I’d barely started working on the first stage of my plans – adding more value to my clients by introducing more consultancy, coaching and workshop tools. Then lockdown in the UK hit.
Like so many, the clients I was working with had to regroup and focus on the very immediate problem in front of them. My work dropped off a cliff - a situation that continued for a few weeks.
That’s where my 2020 education began... although I’ve learned a huge amount this year, these are the six things that have come up time and time again, not just from my own experiences but also what I’ve heard and seen from the leaders and managers I most often work with. Here goes…
Image: Moritz-Knoringer, Unsplash
1. Our responses to crisis and change are unique
I’m used to working with leaders and managers who are preparing to introduce some form of change – mergers or acquisitions or restructures, for example. The work I do in coaching and consulting is designed to build understanding of what organisation change might mean to leaders and their teams, identify the impacts it can have and help them in navigating it. I know lots of theory about how our response to change show up in our behaviours. All good.
So, when I found myself going through the same experience as everyone else at the start of the first lockdown in the UK in March, I assumed I’d know how I’d react – probably a bit of shock, then regrouping and getting on with it (see the rollercoaster below). But that didn’t happen. I was fine to start with but then things crept up on me and my response was quite different to what I expected.
I had similar conversations with others who were surprised by their reactions too.
We just didn’t expect to feel such a mix of emotions, often within the space of a few hours, from shocked to fed-up or weirdly OK among many others. It was all a bit ‘rollercoastery’. As is sometimes the case, the theory and the reality were very different.
2. That rollercoaster feeling is very real
I often use the idea of a rollercoaster to describe how change can feel and I’ve talked about this repeatedly this year, particularly when describing how I’m feeling. From March to June in particular, I found myself getting on the ride at different times of the day - veering from shock to feeling ‘on my game’ in the same morning was pretty common for a few weeks.
It was actually pretty worrying – I couldn’t seem to concentrate for very long and I got really distracted, however busy I tried to keep myself. I felt a bit untethered to be honest. In the early days of lockdown, I wrote about distraction and concentration – partly to help me focus more and make sense of what was going on as well as supporting others who I knew were feeling the same.
I found that I needed more and more energy to keep going as the rollercoaster got a bit faster. I am lucky that I can recognise this happening in myself and I know what to do. So, although I really wanted to help, I had to step back, regroup and then really focus on what needed to be done. Distracting myself by being busy wasn’t helping, but dealing instead with how I felt made all the difference.
I put much more energy into looking after myself - things like getting outside, walking more and reducing my screen time - habits that are now non-negotiable.
The phrase of ‘putting on your oxygen mask before you help anyone else’ has made even more sense in 2020.
3. Talking and sharing...
Talking with others about what was happening was a gamechanger. Sharing stories and experiences seemed to make things just a bit easier and it seemed to be the case inside organisations too. And the more I talked, the more open I could be and in turn, people were with me. I got in touch with people I’ve not spoken to for years and in turn, many got in touch with me. We needed connection.
Although everyone was going through the same change (even though our own individual experiences were very different), conversations happened easily, and trust came more readily. Having spaces to talk seemed to help us all make sense of what was going on, even if we had time to only talk briefly. It’s made me think how useful this could be if there was space in businesses to do more of this.
For me, making sense of things this year has come from a combination of talking, sharing and writing. I’ve given more talks this year – about wellbeing, change and communications - than I’ve done in my entire career. Researching, shaping stories, and sharing what I know, have helped me as much as it’s helped those in the audience.
And all this talking led to...
4. Listening, listening and more listening...
I’ve spent a lot of time listening this year and a big chunk of that has been listening to myself. So often when we’re face big changes, it can seem easier to launch our teams into planning and doing and not pausing to think – even briefly - about how we’re feeling about what’s happening. We can put our energy into trying to stay productive and busy and encouraging our teams to do that too, particularly when our organisations are facing tough times.
Through this year’s experiences, I’ve realised how invaluable listening can be. It can help to build relationships and support creativity and change. I’ve spent quite a lot of time helping people develop their skills in this space by sharing what I’ve learned and I’m keen to support leaders and teams who want to listen better to each another and to themselves.
Watch this space...
5. Wellbeing and leadership matter more than you think
I’ve been talking about wellbeing in change for a few years which stemmed from my own experiences - I started exploring the topics of pressure and stress in the workplace back in 2004. When Covid came along, wellbeing (rightly) became higher profile, mostly because people were rapidly taken out of their usual routine while still trying to do a good job.
People didn’t only have a work change to deal with – children’s schooling, working at home, the health of loved ones, bereavement, furlough – there were loads of different things going on, piled on top of each other.
When people go through big changes, they look to their leaders for support, guidance and to be a role model. Recent research from McKinsey shows that leaders who ask themselves, “how do I make my team members’ lives easier – physically cognitively and emotionally”, can help to improve team performance and satisfaction – and that goes for them too. Positive wellbeing will also play a big part in this.
Things have moved on from wellbeing being about giving free fruit for employees – things will need to be very different if teams are to maintain their wellbeing and resilience and keep going.
6. Put people front and centre in change and you won’t go far wrong
When I rebooted my business a few years ago, I was evangelical about the importance of putting people at the heart of big change. Thinking about people first and foremost. Not the processes or systems we so often get hung up on - those can often feel like the easiest bits.
So, with the help of the team at Valuable Content we developed a manifesto about people change which, I’m glad to stay, is very relevant now. I’m still very keen to encourage leaders and managers to deliver change for the better. Things can be difficult enough without people forgetting there are human beings involved.
Having spent so much time talking and listening during 2020, I’ve realised how far we’ve come but also how much still has to be done. And, although it’s been a pretty crappy year in so many ways, we’ve already seen so much shift and there’s been a huge number of positives. I’m optimistic and hopeful that things can get better and I’m determined to help to do that.
I’ve spent a lot of time this year working out how to better explain the value I bring to organisations when they’re rolling out big change. I am often put in a box of ‘communications’ or ‘change management’ when what I really do is help to facilitate transition and transformation and coach leaders and their teams as they prepare and roll-out change.
This is a work in progress so I’ll be sharing some thoughts in the New Year about how this looks and importantly, where I could help organisations even more. I’d love your thoughts on how this could help.
So, with 2021 in touching distance, I’ll be adding my six lessons to my toolkit and getting out there to help organisations to change for the better. I’d love to hear what you’re planning.
A PS – I couldn’t have got through this year without the sterling support of quite a few people. A special thank you to:
Emma Drake, Ann Hawkins, Alix Nadelman, Nisha Damji, Janine Hogan, Katie Marlow, Helen Reynolds, The Drive the Network partnership, Steph Allen and Sharon Tanton, plus a few others who hopefully know who they are!
If I inadvertently missed you off the list. Apologies and a huge thank you.