Everyone has dealt with loss over the past year. Lost loved ones. Lost friends. Lost family members. As if that isn’t painful enough, there have been countless businesses that have had to close. Revenue forfeited as doors shut because of covid. But we’ve lost more than money. We’ve lost our routines. Our activities. We’ve lost our social lives. Loss of normalcy, whatever that might be. And we live in a world that sweeps it under the rug and moves on.
We live in a world that doesn’t talk about it. We just bounce back. With drive through this and delivery that, it’s a world of instant gratification. We literally can have almost anything we want at our fingertips with technology. Amazon delivers to our doorstep in a day for its “Prime” members.
So as you bring your staff back to work and create your new culture and your new normal, consider if you want to be the bouncing back culture—the sweeping it under the rug kind of place.
Because I don’t recommend it, I recommend the exact opposite. Why? Because I believe that immediately bouncing back is part of the biggest problem in our world. The fact that we don’t talk about these things. We don’t talk about our FEELINGS about these things. We don’t talk about what we’re dealing with. And if we don’t talk about it, how can we ever actually start to work through it?
You can be different. You can create that place for people to talk about what they’re going through… whether it’s the loss of loved ones or the anxiety of returning to work or just a plain old difficult day. You can decrease that anxiety and that grief by allowing them to actually have a voice. Perhaps for the very first time when it comes to these issues.
Do you know how many of my clients have anxiety about pulling it together before going to the office? Of course, we all want to be professional and put our best face forward, but what if we didn’t have to live in fear of pulling it together? What if we could just be ourselves, in our grief, in our anxiety, and show up knowing our jobs are secure and we’re accepted WITH our feelings?
I want to live in THAT world. I want to work for THAT employer. I want to know that companies like that even exist. Is it you? Are you the face of the future? Please say yes, because this world needs some hope right now. Our country needs to believe that someone somewhere wants things to be different.
I do. Do you?
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