In this moment, yes, things are changing every day, it’s surreal and unsettling. 

Yet…

People are finding ways to connect with others with authenticity, empathy and heartfelt care in ways they didn’t three weeks ago, and maybe never have. 

Our planet and environment is getting a little break, with fewer cars on the road and planes in the air. 

My normally sleep-deprived, school-stressed kids are more rested than they’ve been in months. 

I’ve started writing again after months of not, sparked by an admired thought leader creating a virtual writing circle #QuarantineWritingHour for any writer to join, where I’ve restarted my words while connecting with acclaimed writers in ways that just weren’t possible 2 weeks ago.

So, yes, we’re making tough decisions and delivering tough news. We’ve all got our concern radar turned up, in the background all the time. You, your team, your family, and everyone around you is being pushed in ways we haven’t before- how we work, how we interact, how we look at our own invincibility, and even how we look into our refrigerators. 

People are checking social media and news more times per hour than ever before, because we’re all looking for something to be guided by. 

This is where YOU come in as a leader, right now.

While I’m known to get straight to the truth of what nobody wants to talk about (those elephants in the room), I also reflexively scan for cracks in the wall we seem to be facing, where light can get through. I’m a light-finder that way. Once I find those cracks, everything else gets easier, like an airway opening up to what’s on the other side– thinking gets clearer, ideas line up faster, next steps appear easily, breaths deepen and smooth out. 

This compulsion to find the light is helpful when things get dark or panicky, or in coaching a team through change or uncertainty, focusing people on the upside and what’s constructive in the face of what’s scary and stressful. While you may not do that naturally, it’s a learnable skill, and pretty clutch for you and your team right about now.

Here’s how…

Scan for light. 

People get pulled by all that’s bad, unsettling or disappointing. That’s normal, and means they’re still based in reality, which is really important to establish grounding. As you call your team together, call out what’s actually occurred, developed, and is daunting first… that’s important in order to solve for it all, and… realism. Yet negative energy is more powerful (unfortunately) than positive energy, so the key for all the people looking to you for direction, is what you do next. Rather than staying there in what’s daunting, intentionally look for (and call out) what’s good, what’s unexpectedly poignant, what’s purely positive in this, even if it’s tiny. Look for something that actually couldn’t have been true or noticed if this hadn’t happened. People connecting, team supporting one another in new ways, communities coming together on their balconies to sing and cry together, more efficient ways to work together which we’ll carry on long after this passes…

The smallest crack can let through the most illuminating light.  

Bonus: Make this a daily practice- scan and call out new ones every day (can’t be what you said yesterday). We know that daily practices like this actually increase happiness, training the brain to scan in the background of conscious attention for new good, when it wouldn’t otherwise.

Check your energy. 

Energy travels, and is contagious. We pick up, and are affected by other people’s energy in what they say, yet also in their tone, posture, facial expression, cadence, silence, and so many invisible, yet palpable frequencies and vibrations (hence the “vibe” we reference or joke about). That energy is real and people are picking up yours as a leader, and being influenced by it, whether you’re conscious of it or not. Some people are much more sensitive to it than others, yet in times of culture stress (like now), everyone feels it more. That on-edge-ness you might be feeling is translating to others, no matter how you try to mask it; so shift it instead of masking it. 

You’ve heard me talk about State– where you are mentally, emotionally and physically at any moment; this might be an easier way to think about your energy, and it’s much more manageable than you think. So- now, more than ever before… tune in, calm yourself with a few deep, even breaths (classic State change), and choose to be the version of yourself which you know shines in a way that’s additive to others. Maybe the Problemsolver vs. the problemfinder, or the Ideator vs. thevictim?  

Bonus: Daily practices like Miracle Morning, or even just taking 5 minutes to calm and clear your mind are gamechangers.

Choose where to focus.

Picking a focal point on the wall to look at while jumping on a trampoline creates equilibrium in your head, preventing (or curing) dizziness and disorientation without stopping you. As disruption and change happen, your team needs its own kind of focal point too, to stay clear of and prevent (or cure) the disorientation that can easily ensue. So, after you check your own energy, focus it on the blue visible just to the other side of the clouds. That light coming through has a source, so go there. Jump ahead, past this wall, past the current challenge… all the way out to the hindsight that will come afterward, and the next chapter. Having crushed the current challenge, what will you and the team have conquered or discovered or gained as capacity in going through all of this? 

Looking to that focal point of light coming through can act powerfully like that spot on the trampoline jumper’s wall for you and your team right now.

Reframe it. 

When someone puts a new frame on the same picture we’ve all been looking at, suddenly the whole thing looks different. Like wearing tinted glasses, most of us don’t even realize when the filter we’re looking through has normalized everything into looking grey. We take them off, and things that weren’t apparent before, now pop. Details that blended in before now strike you as gamechangers. Great leaders cut through a culture’s groupthink to paint possibility, reframing the whole thing to help us to see it differently. Your team needs that from you right now.  

Try sentence starters like…

“This could be an opportunity to…” 

“What if we looked at this as…”

“What if we…” 

“Imagine that we looked back on this and…”

Use the MAP. 

True always, yet especially now, keeping people engaged (not isolated), switched on (not going dark) and motivated (not defeated) is critical. You can actually do that with every communication, if you remember M.A.P. 

As humans, we have lots of core drives, yet picture the 3 most powerful drives (as Daniel Pink writes about so powerfully in his book Drive) to follow here are like 3 light bulbs in each person’s core… your goal is to get each of them switched on. They’re naturally on when people are fired up, yet you can also turn them on when they’re not… 

M = Mastery. Acknowledge someone’s mastery of skill, knowledge, or talent, and this drive comes on. The other less-obvious part of the mastery drive, is feeling progress toward accomplishment. We’re wired for forward movement, and maybe the hardest aspect of our current situation is the universal brakes it has put on everyone and everything. Yes, slowing down periodically is good when we choose it, yet being stuck standing still or stagnant or in limbo is bad, and shuts down our mastery drive. So… find ways for people to feel like they’re making progress forward. This won’t be in big jumps on metrics and accomplishment, yet shouting out any steps forward do the trick in keeping that mastery drive switched on. 

A = Autonomy. We humans love/need choice. While we tend to think of autonomy as how much free reign/leash/space we have, this core drive is even simpler than that; moment to moment, decision to decision, people need to be able to say to self, “I’m doing this because I CHOOSE to.” Every time they can do that, the autonomy drive switches on. Leading your people in any situation, this is the difference between telling someone to do something and asking/challenging/inviting them to do it. Zero autonomy: “Get xyz done by the end of the day.” vs. Open autonomy: “We need xyz by the end of the day. Can you take it?” On the receiving end of each of these, the difference is palpable; My choice = All in.  

P = Purpose. Feeling that what we do matters in furthering something bigger than ourselves which we care about, in the great scheme of things, taps into the fundamental core drive of Purpose. This is the Big WHY in whatever we’re doing. It’s most easily skipped when we’re in tactical mode, (focusing more on whens and hows), yet the most important piece to start with, as it answers the basic question people always have (in choosing whether or not to care) immediately, allowing them to get onboard immediately.

Every leader thinks about how they’ll respond when they really need to step up and lead a team through adversity. Each day we’re in right now is unprecedented, which means THIS is the moment you’ve been prepping for. Great leaders can deliver tough news while they also bring inspiration, help you refocus, and tap into your best.

Now is the time, and you are the leader. 

And I am here, as always, ready to support and coach you and your team as needed.

Let’s GO!