Furlough. Herd Immunity. Social distancing. Flattening the curve. Track and trace. New normal.
Phrases forced so far into our lexicon this past six months, it’ll take the skill of a neurosurgeon to remove their imprint from our tired brains.
Tired from digesting, understanding, accepting and adapting. Then just when you think we’re over the worst, a fresh set of measures hammers home the reality we were all desperately supressing; the virus isn’t going anywhere for a while.
Unless you happen to make loo roll, most of us have been forced to re-evaluate our priorities and change things up a bit in order to make progress.
Like many others, I found lockdown challenging. My three main duties in life – Dad, husband and business owner – colliding head on, managed under one modest roof, then repeated day after day, groundhog style.
I did, however, learn something. And it’s this: pressing the reset button is a good thing.
Sometimes when you’re solving a problem, you’ve got to make a mess before you can clean up, gain clarity and land on a solution. While lockdown was certainly, at times, a heck of a muddle in my house, it did also put one or two things wonderfully into perspective.
Work life balance is important. Very important. Mentally and physically.
Compassion is your companion. We’ve all faced hard decisions, but there’s a right way to make tough calls.
Working relationships are a two-way street. It’s times like these the genuine ones shine.
Going above and beyond gets you noticed. Sticking rigidly to timesheets does not.
Adaptability has remarkable rewards.
Delivering work that instigates actual outcomes, not just outputs, will separate agencies that win from those that don’t.
Nobody can do everything, all of the time and do it well. What we can do, is find the things we do well, and aim to do them better than anyone else.
So we’ve pressed reset.
Not to start again – we’re proud of our work and the people we work with – but rather to take note of that post-lockdown clarity to ensure we’re expending our energy on the right things, for the right reasons.
Try it. I dare you not to feel invigorated.
