Lessons From the Pandemic: Part 2

Time to read: 1 minute, 8 seconds

My Covid campsite

I conducted a workshop last week as part of a 2-day virtual offsite to help a team reconnect, recover from a brutal year, and evaluate how they want to return to the office. When I asked people to share what they noticed about life during the pandemic, here's what they said:

"My kids enjoyed having more downtime."

"We didn't run around as much."

"My family wasn't over-scheduled."

"I enjoyed having quiet time in the evening."

As an über extrovert, people are my oxygen. During the pandemic, I had to introvert. I read a lot. Watched hours of TV. Gazed at my fish. Snuggled my dogs. Meditated. I took walks with friends, but the year was party-less, trip-less, and crowd-less.

When we could finally emerge, I was ready to par-ty!

Well, I thought I was ready to par-ty. My first few forays into the crowded world were fun in the moment and resulted in days of sleep and recovery from the noise. The pandemic taught me the value of quiet, downtime, and space alone. When activity was stripped away, the quiet that remained turned out to be great.

In the quiet, families reconnected. You may have discovered new hobbies or reignited your love of reading. Lots of people loved the time to cook at home and eat real meals. Game night replaced running from scheduled activity to scheduled activity.

As you plan your re-entry, consider how you will preserve the quiet you found during the pandemic. (For those of you with young children, the word "quiet" isn't quite right. Maybe a better word is slowing? Calm?)

If you want more strategies for re-entering life and work smoothly and effectively, download your copy of The Corporate Rebel's Playbook for Returning to Life (and Work). It will help you decide what to keep and what to change.

Lessons From the Pandemic: Part 1

Time to read: less than one minute

In the olden days when meetings were moving online, I was facilitating a women's leadership training program for a big company. My group and I were enjoying a panel discussion with company leaders. On the screen, dogs barked, kids walked through, and there was much laughter about wearing sweatpants with a button down shirt.

During Corporate Rebel live events this year, we saw a dinosaur costume, crazy hats, tiaras, dogs, cats, ferrets and all kinds of dining tables, kitchen walls, and bedroom decor.

This year, we became more human to each other at work. Corporate life used to be defined by a separation between the office and home. Sure, you put plants and family photos in your cube. Sure, you have friends at the office. And how many of those people ever saw your dirty laundry draped over a chair or watched your toddler streak across the room during a meeting?

We may be happy to give up the streaking and barking dogs, but let's hang on to how we let ourselves be seen this year. The intimidating VP is less intimidating when her kid asks for homework help during a presentation. Your boss is more approachable when you know he's wearing pjs all day.

Although I wish the solution were PJs for Everyday! it is easy to keep the investment in our humanity at work.

Talk to people. Connect. Tell stories of your everyday messes, successes and failures. Be authentic. Other humans are the most important resource you have. Invest in them.

And maybe consider a pajama day at the office. For old times sake.

Get your free download of The Corporate Rebel's Playbook for Returning to Life (and Work) right here. If you love it, please share it.

You're running into obstacles. What do you do?

Estimated read time: 1.3675 minutes.

Webinar problem-solving central! (The replay is below!)

You walk into a conference room. Your presentation is gorgeous. You have butterflies in your stomach because the next hour feels like a chance to establish your credibility with an important group of stakeholders. You set up your laptop, connect to the projector, and...

Thud! Bleep! Bam!

The projector doesn't work.

Actually, your sound effects are probably more like this... &^*%*%($#@#

Participants are due to arrive any minute. What do you do?

Have you ever experienced something like this? Maybe this description is enough to make you stop breathing. There's hope! Keep reading.

I've had mucho experience with things going wrong this week (thank you webinar technology fairies) and have lived to share my lessons learned with you.

Here is what you do:

1. Breathe. Ground yourself so you can feel your feet on the floor and your butt on the chair. This gets you ready to do #2.
2. Remember why you are doing what you're doing. What's the bigger picture? What do you want your audience to learn? Stay connected to the bigger picture which enables you to do #3.
3. Problem solve. Problem solve. Problem solve. Send someone out to make copies of the slides while you deliver a riveting introduction. Talk to your slides while doing interpretive dance. Suppose the webinar system doesn't send out any reminders for your upcoming event. Problem solve by setting up another system to send the reminders. Then, maybe, the webinar system fixes their issue and sends out all four reminders at THE SAME TIME. (All examples are purely hypothetical, of course). Move to #4.
4. Maintain your sense of humor. Seriously, all four reminders at once? No projector? It's comedy. Laugh out loud. A sitcom couldn't do this better. And #5 brings you home.
5. Remember that people are on your side. Be transparent about what's happening and how you're fixing it. Use the obstacles as a chance to ask for help and show that you value your stakeholders and what they want. They want your success as much as you do, and your situation makes them feel better about the times they've been in the hot seat.

You can trust yourself to handle anything that happens. Hit reply and tell me a story about a time you creatively problem-solved an obstacle.

It's been a week!

I hope this helps.

Christina