The Great Reset - Part Two
We are in difficult times here in the United States and around the globe. As some areas of the United States are slowly reopening to restart the economy, other areas are going for a longer lockdown all due to COVID-19. If you had asked me at the beginning of 2020 what I felt the year will hold, I would have told you promise, progress, goals being met and prosperity. Two months in (at least for me partly due to the tornado in Nashville) I sit here and wonder what is the world going to look like.
In these two months, in fact, most likely another month to a month and a half for me, we have sat at home; binge watched countless hours of Netflix, Hulu, and Disney+; listened to music; played with our pets; talked via Zoom, FaceTime, and Skype; started plans for a better future; and some may have created the next best idea. Regardless of where you have found yourself in the spectrum of the day to day of quarantine, realize this, that no matter what you have done or what you haven’t done you are surviving and will be okay. You see we are all dealing with this situation differently and can have high’s and low’s. None of us know what tomorrow holds and we have to live for today.
When all of this started, a lot of us felt shellshocked and bewildered about what was happening. The tangible feeling of fear, hopelessness, and uncertainty, permeated the air. You could feel it and even now going into an essential business you can feel it. Many have been furloughed, laid off, shutdown their dream business, lost everything, concerned about paying their bills, putting food on the table, and so much more. Businesses are re-evaluating their structure, profitability, safety for their employees, expenditures, and so much more. We are all in a constant battle of when will this end and pure raw emotions of loneliness, fatigue, depression, anxiety, and so much more. This is the world we live in right now; however, it is not the world we will live in the future. Though I have personally fought a lot of these battles, I do know that there is hope for a better tomorrow. It may be different than what we were looking at before the lockdowns; however, it will be bright. We all have to make conscious decisions to move forward.
In the business worlds, bosses are being exposed and true leaders are coming to the forefront. The hard decisions of trying to have the business be viable for when the doors open up and the economy comes roaring back. Many businesses have seen a decrease in revenue or a complete halt of revenue. These are trying times affecting not only large businesses; however, in some cases decimating small businesses. The one thing to remember regardless the size of the organization these are our neighbors, friends, family members, and other loved ones that are being impacted. Businesses are having to recalibrate from a growth mindset to a survival mindset.
I read a quote and I may not quote it right nor can find the source; however, someone stated that you can tell the bosses that have never had to live paycheck to paycheck before by the way they treat their staff during this time. This may be a true statement; however, if you do a quick Google search you find that roughly 60-80% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck (this would include said boss). Just because our managers, supervisors, executives, and some C-Suite make way more than the entry level does, it does not mean everything is financially sound with them nor they do not feel empathy towards their employees.
Dave Ramsey and many other financial experts tell us to have a rainy day fund of at least six months of bills to weather a loss of job or decrease in income. I personally was on my way of getting this taken care of this year; however, COVID-19 changed that for me. Though I am not where I want to be I now have a fire to get there. I would suggest for individuals/families, businesses, and governments to begin a plan to create an emergency fund to be in a better situation in the future for whatever may come our way. As an Eagle Scout, one of the sayings is Be Prepared. Right now we need to start being prepared for the future, while living for today.
Organizations are having a tough time as they are wanting to open back up; however, is the opening going to be safe. Employees are stuck between losing a job and unemployment benefits if they don’t feel safe going back to work. It is a fine line that everyone is walking and there is so much uncertainty as what COVID-19 will do. Will there be a second wave? Will the second wave be more deadly than the first? We can put all the data in computers and forecast outcomes; however, those outcomes may not be real life actualities. It is becoming more of until we are in the midst of the crisis will we know the true facts of the situation.
So this long intro is bringing me to a couple of ideas to bring hope and sustainability during this time and the opening of business and economies here in the US and around the world.
Personal
Take the time to evaluate if you are where you want to be. If you are not come up with a plan to correct course.
Begin to set up your emergency fund and begin to payoff debt that is anchoring you from freedom.
Discover your passions and align your life to support those passions.
Connect connect connect!
Get out of the house and talk a walk. Pick up the phone and call.
Dig deeper into your faith.
Work on becoming a whole person. Mind, Soul, Spirit, Emotion, Body!
Business
Begin the process of creating an emergency fund.
Train your managers to not be bosses; however, to be leaders (this is a trainable trait).
Decimate silo’s all the way to the top of the organization. Silo’s create alienation and limit creativity. You never know, someone in your organization may just have the right idea that will catapult the business for the next 100 years no matter what department they are in or what title they hold.
Communicate communicate communicate. I can not stress this enough. Email’s, phone calls, workplace messages, or however, your organization chooses. A true leader trust and cares about their teams and will make the human connection to check in during this time and in the future. You can not lead if you do not know your team!
Realign business models. Look at what is being a waste of resources and realign with those that need more funding as they are being more profitable. Take the emotion out and look at the data. Is a program not coming to fruition? Dig deep and figure out if the program/project is going to be a viable source of income or is it time to pull the plug and move those resources to other areas.
Remember you are in the business of humans. It takes humans to do the work of the organization and humans to purchase the product of your organization.
Evaluate your culture. Is it toxic? Is it positive? Ask questions to those within and truly find out. It is one thing if the upper levels of the organization thinks the culture is great and it is not translating to the lower levels of the organization. Again remove the silos and blinders and you might find out some great things or things that need to be tweaked.
Be open, honest, and transparent.
Finally, truly listen and try to gain understanding.
These are some ideas and they all can be flushed out to more in-depth conversations. Remember we are all in this together. We will all come out of this and be better. Be humble. Be kind. Be supportive. Be compassionate. Be human!
Be Bold! Be Courageous! Be Fearless!
Now is the time to soar!
Joel
PODCAST IS COMING SOON!