The Struggle is Real – Acknowledging the Impact of a Crisis on Human Performance
I am supposed to be in Hawaii right now, lying on a beach, swimming with my kids, and soaking up Vitamin D. As a Minnesota resident, Spring Break is always a highly anticipated week on my calendar and this year was going to be special. I have been to 48 of our 50 states and had only two left to go – Hawaii and Alaska. We were going “all out” to celebrate the completion of this life-long bucket list item with two weeks of hard-earned time off. Our suitcases were packed. Toes were painted. Calendars, cleared.
But 2-days before takeoff, a pandemic hit. And we made the call to cancel it all.
Now I should share with you that I live with an expectation gap nearly every day of my life – suffering in the space between “what would be ideal” and “what is real.” My self-actualization tendencies default to setting ambitious goals and outworking problems. But you can’t outwork a pandemic -- so this virus just excavated a cavernous hole between my high expectations and my new reality.
And adjustment takes energy, at least it does for me.
I know I am not alone in feeling a sense of loss during this crisis – from the stock market, to our personal freedoms, to human touch – there is a space that wasn’t there before. Our brains notice it, and it wants our normal back.
Dear fellow human beings – if you are struggling right now, know that you that you are experiencing a normal response to an abnormal situation. Your unconscious brain is wired to crave certainty and security – both of which are more scarce today. Your internal processing system perceives this new uncertainty as a threat.
Human beings are instinctively wired to respond to threats – be it a pandemic or a saber tooth tiger. When triggered, our bodies begin to pump adrenaline and cortisol into our bloodstream, narrowing our cognitive function and blocking access to our pre-frontal cortex, the neural home of executive functions like risk-taking, empathy, creativity and logical decision making. AND these chemicals stimulate feelings of fear, stress, and actions of self-preservation (eg. hoarding cleaning supplies and toilet paper!).
So the struggle is real, and it is normal.
Breathe.
This week I talked to multiple business leaders who sensed that their teams were struggling. They were either struggling with a sudden lack of work (the hospitality industry, training industry), a sudden shift in work (at home with their children, navigating Zoom, leading new mission critical projects), or an overwhelming amount of work (Healthcare Industry, Manufacturing, Supply Chains Globally).
People were also struggling because this situation pulled them down to the baseline on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. In the March 2020 edition of CFO Magazine, they wrote, “In a crisis, you first need to meet people where they are. Their most basic needs must be met and they need to feel safe. Naturally, no one is interested in talking about the company’s strategic plan when they’re out buying hand sanitizer and toilet paper. Once their essential needs are addressed, then the focus can shift to alignment, common purpose, elevating others, and even opportunities for growth.”
Leadership Takeaway: Good luck motivating someone to be creative, agile and thoughtful when they are afraid of every cough and doorknob around them.
If this makes sense to you, than it DOES NOT make sense is to ignore it. Our professional tendency may be to fast-forward through our own struggles or the struggles of others at work when we need performance to be at or above previous levels during a crisis. But “being resilient” isn’t code for “ignore all feelings and gut it out.”
Being resilient means absorbing the impact of change, and bouncing back into performance. But many people are still (understandably) in a state of absorption.
When people are not demonstrating resilience, it is because they are suffering. Instead of interpreting their dysfunction as a sign of weakness, see it as a signal for leadership.
The Kubler Ross Change Curve shows how people emotionally experience disruptive change. Even though change is more normalized in today’s fast-paced world, a change of this magnitude is unique. The "struggle" will be observable in employee behavior. The chart below helps you 1) recognize where they are at, and 2) respond to it appropriately.
Some people are going to “zip through the dip” and get re-engaged quickly during this crisis -- and some are going to get stuck on the downward slope and need your help getting back up. The degree to which this crisis impacted their life will justify the spread.
Know this, you do not need to choose between “Caring About People’s Feelings” or “Caring About Your Bottom-Line” – both of these energies are necessary if you want to succeed in this situation. As Dr. Brene Brown writes in her book Dare to Lead, “Leaders must either invest a reasonable amount of time attending to people’s fears and feelings, or squander an unreasonable amount time trying to manage ineffective and unproductive behavior.” The faster you help yourself and your team move back into performance, and process their feelings, the more likely it is that your company will get back on track!
Like many of you, I have been looking for the bright side in this crisis. As I visit my co-workers homes via webcam, and listen to their families playing in the background, I wonder if this situation will make us all seem more deeply human to each other. Could this crisis become the catalyst for relating differently to our colleagues – adjusting the boundaries between who we really are and who we are at work – and leave us all feeling closer to each other instead of farther apart?
If so, it warms my heart even more than the Hawaiian sun. When this crisis reveals your character, I hope it reveals you are a wholehearted leader who cares about the struggle, and wants to help people through it.