What did I learn in Covid times
I mean, I didn’t get the illness (thankfully) but I am more over the fact of writing about the whole world situation rather than the illness itself.
Besides the factor that was completely unforeseen and took everyone by surprise, the hit each of us had, was different. Even though I used to be behind a keyboard and a monitor since I was a kid, what I needed to do for a living, changed dramatically — I was used to traveling to meet people and it turned out to be a deadly activity, so, bonding and relationship had to be re-thought. More work-oriented, I wanted to set a small list of learnings I did during these unreal moments that I figured out I will carry as learning assets forever.
- People have a background that runs in their backend and will affect day by day their behavior and outcome from a chat. That backend may be an old parent that may get sick or even being part of the high-risk community (like me). This is instanced into Covid, but the fact is that people all the time have background issues that interfere with work and we most probably don’t know it.
- People need time to assimilate an environment change, some of them need a few days, others are still waiting and can’t stand the new normal and need their lives back, as the teachers, who have been put into a super uncomfortable position.
- I spent a great amount of time on things that nowadays I am not sure they had the expected return. I flew miles and miles for a one on one meeting that was needed but with the flight, I left on the table other things that I could have done. In the last 5 months, I could achieve with my team incredible progress reducing the debt on the operation I run, which I consider more useful.
- Understanding people became as important to me as understanding the business. Probably I used before loads of my brain cycles on thinking about the biz, but not that much on understanding the people, motivations, rationals, intentions, and ambition. I experienced that bold changes have been done thanks to those personal matters on top of the culture of the company they were working dictated.
- Staying in your comfort zone will only put you behind when things changed as happened here. Fear arose tremendously on people and froze them to actually move forward. As I mentioned before, not everyone reacts and adapts in the same way.
- We live with more unknowns that we would love to, and we have to deal with unknowns. What fostered this year is the fact that the number of unknowns was huge in comparison to what we used to. Risks and assumptions management was delayed due to gut feelings that in nice years may work, but contingency wasn’t on top of everyone’s mind.
- If the message that becoming digital is the only thing that will save us didn’t hit with this pandemic, not sure what will.
I hope technology and connectivity help us to be closer; and of course, a hug of a friend and a handshake with another person can’t be replaced, although it is time that the fact that we don’t know when will that happen regularly again, stops us from becoming better professionals.
