Positive action tool kit for the coming weeks
By Declan Noone & Armin Forstner
We are locked in. Every one of us is trying to figure out the new normal, a space between family time, work time and me time all confined within the walls of your home. On top of this, your social media threads, news channels, family and friends’ text messages, as well as your work emails seem to bring nothing but bad news and a sense of foreboding. Somehow, it is getting harder to distinguish between one day and another…..
The so called VUCA world (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous) went into overdrive with this crisis, with Uncertainty being the dominant component right now. Any plans you might have had for 2020 on a personal or professional level are either put on hold or in the bin. This has caused a sense of grief, and the accompanying feeling of loss. We can also experience what is known as anticipatory grief, “that feeling we get about what the future holds when we’re uncertain”[1].
From victimhood to agency
To shake us out of this malaise, to move from a mind-set of victimhood to one of agency we would like to share some of our insights from the past six years, since we founded Serrano 99 Management Consulting (the publisher of positive & mindful leader magazine) These insights are helping us and our clients prepare today to succeed in an uncertain tomorrow.
Allow yourself to grieve
You have every right to be angry, frustrated, sad, hurt, whatever negative emotion you feel. Allow it to happen. Allow yourself to feel that emotion, and then do something about it.
When we talk about Positive & Mindful Leadership, Positivity is not about denying the Negative. It is about allowing, acknowledging and experiencing the negative before deciding to take positive actions to move forward.
If you don’t acknowledge the negative, or worse, if you run away from it, you are just setting the conditions for a larger explosion later on when you hit another bump on the road. However, you must remember that while you must yourself the space and time to experience these negative emotions, this is not to dwell, but to allow you to process them, so you can get back up and move forward.
Agency
With this global pandemic, the uncertainty and resultant cancellation of plans, projects and ideas – through no fault of your own – can lead people to feel as if they are a victim. This can result in a loss of a sense of agency, as in a loss of control over your own life. Having a sense of agency is so important for your resilience levels, your stability as a person and your capacity to deal with conflict or change. So, take ownership and take action.
As a simple tool, we recommend you make the following list:
- Focus on Critical problems.
- Pick problems likely to happen.
- Focus on what you can actually influence.
- Prioritise the risks.
- Brainstorm solutions.
- Make a plan.
Positive Relationships
Positive relationships have a great impact on your wellbeing, mental health and longevity[2]. Enforced isolation for any period beyond a few days is challenging, but if you are housebound with a partner, it can lead to increased tensions, as you both try to cope with this new normal.
However, you will both rely on each other for support in the days and weeks to come, and now is the time to invest positively in enhancing the bonds of that relationship. This is where the importance of kindness, empathy and compassion comes to the fore.
- Make time for each other. There can be work time, family time (if you have children), and me time, but now more than ever there need to be “us time”. Try and do something new or romantic, or different. It is not easy when confined but there is also fun and levity in trying to do something outside of your usual leisure pursuits. Perhaps you can play a board game, share your favourite music or go for a walk together.
- Actively listen: Set aside your own fixed ideas or need to respond and actually listen to what your partner is saying and how they are saying it. Feeling heard by your partner is so important with self-isolation, as we don’t have the opportunity to sit with friends and talk things through.
- Be mindful of the need to be present: Remove all distractions including phones, just be in that moment with that person.
- Be thankful and be grateful for what you have. Say it to your partner and mean it.
Mental Models
We keep reading that tomorrow will bring a new normal, yet it appears that everyone is looking at this new tomorrow through the same lens; the old normal of yesterday.
Albert Einstein’s belief that “we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them”, means we need to challenge our own mental models, our fixed ideas as to what is possible, what is success, alter our mind-set and be excited about creating new solutions and approaches for the uncertain world of tomorrow. Remember the customer or client experience is going to be different because of this crisis, the student experience will be different, employee expectations will have changed, business needs and focus will have altered. So, invest the time now to challenge your mental models, challenge your fixed ideas and beliefs built yesterday and create new solutions for new opportunities for tomorrow.
Personal Wellbeing
Keep this simple. Eat well, sleep well, exercise, have fun and laugh. We could get lost in the details but you will all have your own version of what each one means. It’s a constant ebb and flow, you don’t always manage to achieve each one to the level you wish but be conscious of the decisions you are making in each regard rather than operating on automatic pilot and unconsciously damaging your personal wellbeing.
These few tools are helping us in these challenging times. We hope they are of value to you in some small way. Positive & Mindful Leadership is more than what you do for others, it’s also what you do for yourself. It is about how your self-care translates to build strong loving bonds in your life, bonds that enhance your wellbeing, happiness and resilience. All of which help you through times like we are experiencing today and into tomorrow.
From all of us in Serrano 99, take care and keep safe.
[1] https://hbr.org/2020/03/that-discomfort-youre-feeling-is-grief
[2] https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/the-health-benefits-of-strong-relationships
