Interesting questions, both: What is our new normal and “Now what?”
Teasing apart these queries, we happened upon this space: what are the (clearly unintended!) awarenesses and gifts our time apart during this once-in-a-century pandemic has afforded us (and yes, we believe there are some important ones)? How have we evolved in regards to perceptions, attitudes and approaches towards professional relationships? What have we learned and what can we extract from the lesson(s)? Hmmmmm, food for thought indeed.
In her article for the New York Times dated 4.23.21, Kate Murphy asserts:
“The past year has forced a mass meditation on the nature and strength of our social ties. While our culture has encouraged us to accumulate friends, both on and offline, like points, the pandemic has laid bare the distinction between quantity and quality of connections. There are those we’ve longed to see and those it’s been a relief not to see. The full reckoning will become apparent only when we can once again safely gather and invitations are — or are not — extended. Our social lives and social selves may never be the same.”
We submit for your consideration, now that things are opening up - returning to “normal” - who do we really want or need to spend time with professionally? Who is important to us and our professions? Now that we’ve had this time in relative Zoom isolation, necessitating intense intentionality with interactions (we could no longer just bump into a colleague in the lunchroom and ask a quick question), how have we prioritized communications and exchanges in a meaningful, thoughtful manner? Obviously (this is a FIG offering, after all!), consequential, relevant relationships are important, but what’s the quality of these interactions? Like it or not, we were compelled to calculate the relative importance of who we chose to engage with, what we needed to accomplish, and why we were doing so (we didn’t have much choice in the “where” question: Home office? Living room? Kitchen counter? Backyard? Ok, so we had a few choices)?
In retrospect, we spent a lot of time pre-Covid running to meetings, driving for miles, making time for lunches, happy hours, business functions, philanthropic events or meetings and networking events. Whew! Makes me tired just remembering! We’ve conducted an decidedly unscientific poll speaking with friends and colleagues about how they anticipate returning to their professional existences and how they thought it would look for them. These enlightening discussions with folks - formerly out just about every evening to some event or another, for whom visibility seemed to be the imperative - almost universally intend to shift their behavior to spending time with others who shared common attitudes towards meaningful, mutually beneficial, substantive, authentic, true, like minded intentions as opposed to attending whatever event to which they were invited. This last year has brought an unexpected twist: they don’t miss the “rat race” (to quote one of our subjects)! Covid has inadvertently turned us into thoughtful, circumspect professionals, weighing the cost-benefit analysis of where we use the precious resource of our time. The notion of going out, talking with people we may or may not particularly enjoy or have much in common with, just for the sake of visibility has all but evaporated. The notion of expending valuable energy putting on our “game faces” has become cumbersome in most of our decisions for engagement - do we really want to use precious energy just to be “out there?” Where do we really want to focus that attention?
To be sure, there will be times when we must engage with odious people and challenging personalities and attend events we’d prefer not to - that’s just life in the business world. And of course, we need to be careful to avoid the development of Agoraphobia and the idea of never going anywhere, as that’s just not healthy. However, creating space for yourself for making conscious, thoughtful decisions about who we choose to spend time with, what the benefit will be - whether it be personal gratification and fulfillment or professional advancement - is not a bad idea - agreed? How about we get off the gerbil wheels of endless events and get togethers just because that’s what we’ve always done - the old “normal” - and be intentional about our cherished and newly remembered own time? The “new.”
Murphy further states “.....recognizing that someone is important and reaching out are only the first steps. Maintenance is where we generally fall down on the job when it comes to relationships and why so many people felt as if they were left without a chair when Covid made the music stop.”
Let’s honor these important connections, help grow, sustain and nurture them. They are our hearts professionally and personally. Let’s treat them that way.
Until next time……..