The tide is out!

One of my favorite quotes of all time is this one by Warren Buffet:

"Only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked."

If there is any point in our lives where the proverbial tide is out - it is now! Almost overnight there is pressure on us to:

1. Live our personal lives, and connect with friends and family differently

2. Live our work lives, and collaborate with our team and organization differently

3. And - Lead differently

And the list goes on.....

However, living to the quote, this has been a time of deep reflection for me personally to identify where in my life am I swimming naked! Where are those around me in my personal life, and my work life swimming naked? Where is my team swimming naked?

During this time I would urge everyone to use a simple model for all 5 areas above. You may have used this in other areas of your professional / personal lives - but in this unique time in history during the COVID-19 pandemic the questions have a more profound effect.

What should I stop doing, start doing, or keep doing? I will talk through some of the ways this has affected me with the hope it will give you some ideas of your own. This is not an exhaustive list - simply a starter to jump start your own reflection.

We are all swimming naked somewhere - the question is what are you going to do about it!

Live our personal lives, and connect with friends and family differently

I will start on the personal side of things. What a disruption to our lives. There are plenty of memes out there about the fact that in the developed world, we get to ride our this pandemic from our homes on our couches - however I do not want to downplay the impacts. This is more than taking a 4 month vacation at home with Netflix. EVERYONE, no matter where in the world they live are being impacted as forced to live live differently.

Here is how it has impacted me:

Stop doing

Before I get into these I will say they are all a daily struggle - and the struggle is real! What I know for sure is, they all "empty my proverbial bucket". All shorten my temper - which is one area I am absolutely naked!

Being so hard on myself

You can read article after article both pre and post COVID about the fact that you can't do it all. Despite this what do we all do - we try to do it all and beat ourselves up for being a less than adequate parent, brother, son, friend. During this I have been working to do a better job bucketing my time, and focusing on what is in front of me. Whether that is a chat with my mom/sisters, simply enjoying the time cooking a good dinner, or snuggling in on the couch to watch a good show. Just relish in the moment, give yourself a break on the past, and deliberately focus on those around you.

Constantly entertaining my kids

It is certainly common place to keep kids busy these days. Whether it is activities they are involved in, working to pick up homeschooling, or constantly playing with them - I feel the need to keep my kids - especially my four year old busy. With my new WFH schedule and the fact that my wife still has to work quite a bit - this is impossible! A colleague of mine help to set my brain straight this week - who has older kids. She said - "Brian - a little independence and creative time for your daughter to entertain herself is not only ok - it is likely a good thing!" When I pause to simply watch her brain be creative, instead of filling her time, it is quite amazing to see what she comes up with!

Start doing

Daily walk / outside time

This one is so simple, however is not something I did before COVID. My daily outside time pre-COVID was often just long enough for the dog to do his business. Now, on a daily basis, we go for a walk. Nothing huge - just to the end of the neighborhood and back. Sometimes I am helping my daughter learn to ride a bike. Others I am chasing her on her scooter. And sometimes - it is just a walk. No phones - no email - just time outside to take a deep breath. This is one of my new favorite parts of everyday.

Workout with kids

This is kind of funny and has added to the joy of working out. My wife found kid yoga videos that are themed to things like Moana or Frozen - and when we hit the treadmill/weights, or daughter hits the yoga mat. Some days are better than others, however sometimes she really gets into it and it makes the entire workout much more fun and entertaining!

Keep doing (or do more of)!

Live on a plan for personal finance

Whatever your plan is, just be sure you follow a plan. For us all I can say is thank you Dave Ramsey! We certainly are not perfect following his 7 Step plan but we try - month over month to follow the plan and have been doing so for the past ~10 years. The point is not Dave Ramsey is the best - the point is - be intentional, follow a plan, stick to it, in the good times and the bad. Because of this, we truly can weather the storm at our doorstep. I feel blessed to be in an industry that did not shut down, while at the same time if we were not following his financial plan, we would be under significant financial stress right now which I know a lot of people are.

Create special video connections

The video happy hour has become trendy. Despite this, I must say they are pretty fun. Also, if you pull on this thread a bit - how else can you create group connections over video. A few weeks back we had a post dinner chat with my in-laws at our respective dinner tables, just like we would after a dinner together. This chat has been one of my favorite memories thus far of the pandemic. Make the time - connect with the people you love over video. It feels a bit goofy the first time but you quickly realize that it does help the soul to be able to see people face to face, and you will find yourself questioning why you do not take advantage of technology such as this outside of a Stay at Home order!

Live our work lives, and collaborate with our team and organization differently

Now let's jump to the professional side of things. Oh - how the tide is out and it seems that myself and others are naked all over the place! Here are some of the things I am seeing:

Stop doing

Duplicative work

The bigger your team or your organization is, the higher the chances you have duplicative work going on right now. In the world we like to talk about lens of the triangle below - stating you only get two. I will say - during this pandemic speed wins (sidetone - it is also proving to me that speed always wins). Things are changing daily, so your two week sprint just isn't going to cut it. Because of this obsession for speed, we all have the tendency to dive in, without looking up and out to see if someone already did what you are being asked to do. You need to be a detective - hunt down the duplicative work and fight the tendency to think what you are trying to do is unique/special. Fight the urge to try to do everything - and turn it into a collaborative opportunity with others doing similar work as you and your team.

Projects / tasks without an end date

This is never a good idea however now more than effort we just do not have time for scope creep. I have always thought that the best way to control scope is to pick a delivery date - pick a mountain top that both you and your business partners can hook arms and run towards. This is one of the reasons I love Agile. Pick your sprint duration and stick to it! If you do not follow a delivery methodology - now is the time to do it! Furthermore, in alignment with the point above about speed - I would recommend shortening your sprint durations. If you used to do monthly, do bi-weekly. If you used to do bi-weekly, push to do weekly deployments/sprints. This will really force your team to re-think scope and delivery timelines.

Start doing

Make time to laugh together

We are all stressed out. That may be the understatement of the year! One of my favorite people in the world, my wife late grandfather who was the ripe old age of 104 always told us to be sure to laugh a lot. It was one of his constant recommendations when people asked him the secrets to living to 100. One of my flaws may be that I stick to business and the task at hand a bit too much at work. I need to force myself to slow down, change the dialogue, and in this case joke around a bit with the folks you work with. You can almost feel their shoulders relax, the tone in their voice change, and the rest of the conversation proceed in a more productive manner. I had a couple great laughs over the past week and it made me reflect that we all need this - even more so in todays operating environment.

Share personal stories

This somewhat goes along with laughing together as often times the stories generate some laughter - however their are also stories in all of our personal lives that are quite incredible right now. I will say, if you don't create time for this in your virtual connections with people - they likely will not happen. However if you can get some engagement going in this area it can create a little magic. This past week I had one meeting in particular where we spent about 10 minutes sharing personal stories. From heart displays in windows, to ways kids are connecting within the social distancing guidelines, to a little painted rock left at a new homeowners house - stating we are in this together - to welcome them to the neighborhood. There is magic all around us right now. That 10 minutes reminded my heart of the power of a story, and reinforced I need to help make time for it.

Keep doing (or do more of)!

Near term goal setting

A mentor of mine had taught me to utilize the OKR framework to help decide what is truly important, and align the team around what is important right now. We already have a track record of doing this however now, in the middle of the madness of COVID, it was almost peaceful to go through our quarter 1 goal setting, and quarter 2 planning to celebrate what we had accomplished and dream a bit into the future. Without this, I feel we would simply be jumping from fire to fire, without any lanes on the road to guide how we are working on a day to day basis.

Building / fostering alliances

This somewhat ties to eliminating duplicative work above, but is also much more. If you already have a tribe at work, tap into it and see how you can help one another. If you don't have a tribe, this is a perfect time to start building one. The candidate areas when the tide is out are the areas of duplicative work I spoke of above. The work in the same area. In my case they work with the same data, to solve similar problems, in similar ways. Who knows - one or two of those areas may be a key to a whole new way of doing things now within the pandemic and in the future. I happen to have run into a few of those situations within the COVID response and are very thankful for the tribe I get to be a part of!

Make time for one on one connections

If you are anything like me, things are a little crazy right now. Due to this I have been finding myself whittling down the calendar for the most important tasks. It would be very easy to reduce the frequency of my one on ones with the team, or remove them altogether. It would certainly be one way to free up a considerable amount of time each week. However, I have a little man on my shoulder saying "DON'T DO IT!!!" Now more than ever, one on one time is important with the team. It may be a time to vent to one another to blow off steam. It may be a time to chat about the upcoming weekend. Or it may also be some time to remind you and your team member to slow down, take a breath, and figure out how to change the world together!

Lead differently

Everything personal, and professional bleeds together for me, and I would assume many of you. To that end, almost all of the points below have affected me in some way, shape, or form in the way I personally am leading amidst the chaos. However, here are a few things, specifically related to leading that I have been thinking about quite a bit.

Stop doing

Working & collaborating in areas with no halo effect

Now more than ever what you do with your time is important. Perhaps you need to work on that urgent project, or create holes in your day to spend time with your kids so they don't go crazy. This has me looking at my time very closely. In doing so, I have found that from a leadership perspective all of my time falls on a scale - left to right - from no "halo effect" on others, to a significant halo effect on others. To open up time I have started slashing many of the tasks/projects/touch points that are further to the left on that scale. I am guessing this will continue quite a bit beyond this season we are all in.

Start doing

Use video to connect one on one

I have just started this one, and it is a bit uncomfortable both for me and my team members that I am connecting with, however now more than ever face to face connection is important. Muscle memory for most poeple/companies is to simply connect over the phone. I will tell you, if you work past the discomfort, the level of connection being able to look one another in the eye is COMPLETELY different. Use this time where video has almost become hip to shift the way you connect.

Tell more stories

In leading people and organizations, it is no secret that story telling is powerful. Despite this, it does not come naturally to me. I have been reading/watching a lot of content by Nancy Duarte to learn how to be better in this space. Throughout COVID, some of the best discussions I have had with my team, with others around the company I work for, or one on one with folks have stories weaved within. In one area, we have been using Nancy Duarte's story structure to really compare contrast where we are, to where we could be over, and over again - to drive macro change related to how data and analytics teams can collaborate at scale, very quickly. We feel like I have been talking about this type of collaboration in various roles FOR YEARS, and here it is, starting to happen quickly right before my eyes.

Keep doing (or do more of)!

Create obsessive focus

This ties to the discussion on near term goal setting above. Now more than ever, the team and the organization around needs to have lanes on the road that get us all driving down the same side of the road - together. Furthermore, on a person by person, project by project basis - now more than ever you need to really prioritize what is important, and clear everything else out of the way. If you have never set a WIP limit for yourself, or for people on your team the time to start is now! Just like I discussed shortening sprint cycle times above, during a time of crisis you should likely lower your WIP limits for your team. If anything, it will give them some time to take a deep breath. It will also force you to make some tradeoff decisions related to what is really important. A real example this week had me and one of my team members reducing our personal WIP limits to ONE EFFORT. That is it. Just focus on that one thing and help those around us that were in the trenches.

Create a sense of calm and excitement

Building on obsessive focus is creating a sense of calm, and even a sense of excitement for what we are work leading through. One way to create obsessive focus would be to really ride the backs of our team and those around us. The other is to play defense for people, let them focus, and be sure that they do not have too much on their plates. In a book I read recently it had a great quote. In this time more than ever in your personal and professional life, this rings true, and I believe this is part of uncovering the excitement of some of the amazing opportunities at our doorstep.

As a leader you need to create more calm than chaos!

---

So I will ask again - where are you swimming naked? Where should you evolve? My call to action for you is to:

• Lead differently now - when people need it most!

• Come out the other side a better version of yourself, or a better version of your team and your organization

The point is - what changes can you make NOW - take advantage of the crisis, and which do you need to earmark for when the tide comes back in and you can breath again. Whatever you do, fight the tendency for muscle memory to take over and go back to the version of yourself prior to this pandemic. What do you need to start, stop, or accelerate to truly drive change in yourself, your team, or your organization?

All opinions are my own, and do not represent my employer or any associated organization or entity.