This month I read a book on everyone's favorite topic: the pandemic. Stronger Through Adversity by Joseph A. Michelli tapped into the lessons that over 140 leaders around the US and world learned and applied during the pandemic. Some of these leaders were new to the business they were leading when the pandemic started, some had been in leadership of a business for years before the pandemic started, some of the leaders work with new companies, and some of the leaders work with companies that have been around for decades. We'll tap into the thing I found most interesting and the question we really have to answer about the pandemic second, and first I want to talk about a couple of the lessons the book shared.
Some of the key insights shared in the book were:
"Only the truth sounds like the truth." (Michelli)
-"Transparency, honesty, kindness, good stewardship, even humor, work in business at all times." John Gerzema
-The digital format that everyone switched to enabled leaders to "drop in" more consistently and easily to meetings and groups, not for the purpose of pushing or directing, but to be visible and to be available to help and assist in any way they could to make things easier for their/that team.
-Things like culture, mission, vision and purpose helped leaders and teams stay focused during the heart of the pandemic and helped motivate them and help keep them from burnout when things began to even out too.
-One of the greatest treasures of the pandemic was the proliferation of simple, honest, human connection.
So the interesting part about the book was how much of what was shared I felt I had already heard. Why is this interesting? Because it speaks to how willingly leaders were speaking out throughout the pandemic doing the best they could to be visible and vocal. So more than anything most of the book felt like a review of all that happened and how leaders led during the first year of the pandemic. In some ways I appreciated that there wasn't anything really new because it meant that consistently, across the board, this is how leaders were leading and what we saw and heard then was exactly how it looks in review.
Which brings us to the issue and question, something that has been a concern I have and something many companies and employees have struggled with since everyone started trying to figure out what life would look as we navigate this stage of the pandemic and what comes next: is what happened during the pandemic just something we tuck into our playbooks for the next crisis and we pack it away until then, or will we use what we learned to improve the present as well as prepare for the future crises that will happen? If we think it's just to be used for the next crisis, why is "everyone wins" OK only during a pandemic or similar crisis? Yes, I know that for some companies the pandemic has just moved things along several years and brought them to a point of progress they were working towards anyway, and they're working to keep the progress and innovations that have been made during the pandemic as a permanent aspect of their company. But what about the rest of the companies and leaders who want to put everything about the pandemic on a shelf and return to life as it was before the pandemic? I think some will get away with it, but I keep coming back to the point of how successfully things did run and work for so many people. It wasn't perfect, but I think that has to do with the implementation/preparation time (nothing) as much as anything else. I don't think this is a chapter we write and call good, I think we should integrate as much as we can from what worked during the pandemic into our lives and businesses going forward.
What did you learn from the pandemic and are you applying those lessons to your business going forward, why or why not?
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