#Earth Day 2020 - is it time for re-invention?
When systems break down, strong leaders stand up. Are you standing up to fix the old or ready to re-invent the new?
So much of our lives has shifted over the last few weeks and months including our abilities to:
Get ourselves and others set up and working from home
Quickly adapt to change
Engage in different work: whether that is through volunteering to support our communities or even by switching production lines by using our factories and laboratories to supply essential things needed in our hospitals and care homes
Organisations and individuals across the UK have been stepping up to help make visors, masks, bags, scrubs, lunches/dinners or to do shopping for others. All this is happening whilst efforts continue to be made to continue our essential work or managing our “new normal” work with many also caring for children at home. It’s been quite extraordinary.
Shine a light
Today is Earth Day 2020. The enormous challenges — but also the vast opportunities — of acting on climate change have distinguished the issue as the most pressing topic for the 50th anniversary. Climate change represents the biggest challenge to the future of humanity and the life-support systems that make our world habitable.
In that light, it’s an ideal moment to allow our attention to focus on the positive benefits of Corona Virus and our lifestyle changes to the planet. Yes - there are many. The canals are cleaner in Venice, skies are clearer and bird song is louder as a result of less traffic and aircraft noise. On last night’s news broadcast was a report that seismologists had observed that the earth is vibrating less as cars, trains and other forms of transport significantly reduces.
Shifting your focus
So what are you noticing in this new paradigm? Have your thoughts and considerations changed as conversations start moving towards exit from lock down? What are the conversations that you are having with your teams, colleagues and peers?
Now is the time to seize the opportunity to reconsider not only what we do but how we do it.
Revert to the ‘norm’?
My suspicion is that there will be a drive towards “getting back to business as usual”, “making up for lost time”, “generating enough revenue to get back on track”, “ensuring profit margins are maintained or losses minimised”.
Of course, there will be a strong draw towards existing economic priorities as we consider the real impact of Covid-19 as well as how and when we return to the workplace. However, could launching back in where we left off be a missed opportunity?
Think big
I’ve had many interesting conversations with business leaders over the last few weeks. Many are keen to explore the opportunities created by this unthinkable pandemic and its impact on our world. Through it, we have acquired new skills and capabilities in virtual working and therefore in virtual leadership. We have killed many old beliefs about what is possible and what isn’t and the speed with which we can flex and change. The status quo has been challenged to such an extent that in many ways simply going back to where things were seems rather short sighted.
The challenges which lie ahead for many leaders involve consideration of capitalising on our new-found talents and abilities but also to capitalise on what emerged for us as individuals as we use our experiences for the positive benefit of our lives and our businesses too.
Your brave new world
So here’s the rub. This new world which we will be living in mean it’s time for some new thinking. To help this new thinking, I invite you to spend some time considering the following questions and noting your answers to them.
What have you liked or loved about this period? What has it enabled for you personally? What has it opened up or enabled for your loved ones? What has it enabled in terms of how you interact with your community? What about your team as a whole? What about individual members of the team? What has been the quality of your connectedness during this period?
What possibilities do all these things open up for what you create in the new normal?
What has been most challenging? What has been tricky to navigate? Who has struggled with aspects of the transition? Many of my most extroverted friends have found home working less satisfying whilst the introverts have loved it! Where have you personally struggled? Have you been able to explore these things with friends, family, colleagues?
What does this tell you about what you and your organisation might need to explore? What does this tell you about where additional support and development might be needed?
What have you noticed about some of the wider benefits? Community benefits, societal benefits etc? Are there arenas in which your curiosity has been sparked?
What do the above questions and their answers tell you about your leadership?
Like many others who work in the arena of change and leadership development, I am driven to support leaders and their teams by encouraging you to take the time to consider these questions. To have the opportunity to step out of the reactive and create time and space for creative thinking which can be taken into the organisation is rare. Don’t waste it.
Is now the time to have these conversations? Just think of the possibilities they open up:
To explore the new context in which you want to operate
To take time to consider your purpose and that of your organisation beyond the obvious
To start a different dialogue with your people which involves declaring something new and ambitious that people can truly get behind
It’s the ideal time to make sure that you’re not just heading back to a focus on the short term economic requirements that are simply the fuel of any organisation but to act forward into the future you really want to create.
Our planet needs creative, inquisitive and curious minds. This earth needs leaders who can bring their full authentic and vulnerable selves to the table; leaders who can work with others to create the new, to challenge in a way that is delightfully disruptive of the old habits, assumptions and perspectives that will not serve our collective future well.
Whilst the legacy of Covid-19 is inevitably going to involve loss, difficulty and significant economic challenges, I suspect it will also include many wonderful elements where the virus and its impact have acted as an extraordinary catalyst and springboard to a future that is ours to invent.
#earthday2020 #creatingthefuture
Diane Chappell
Curiositas Leadership Ltd.