“What did you learn from corona?” is a question currently being asked by many HR experts on LinkedIn & Co. Always take away something positive, seems to be the motto for those working from home. I can easily keep up with that, although unlike for many coaches, for me the whole thing has nothing to do with digital, remote leadership, or hybrid events.

As a result of the pandemic I – like many trainers – was faced with countless cancelled events. The jobs I was able to do online, I completed during a 7-week surfing break in my beloved Algarve. Vastness, tranquility, and space on spectacular, deserted beaches in high season, a priceless experience. I am still miles away from surfing a cutback, but I have learned to get a good position in the lineup. Surfing in the morning, working in the afternoon! Perfect! THANK YOU, CORONA!

And then corona blessed me with an epic exchange with Jonathan, a former colleague I hadn’t seen for 19 years and almost lost track of. Thanks to corona, our diaries allowed us to have an almost spontaneous coffee together on a Monday afternoon. As simple as that. Magic. It soon became clear that we had a lot to tell each other. He talked about his area of expertise – lean management – and I listened to him with great interest. In return, I invited him to my office to give him a taste of my coaching sessions. I subjected him to a sheer flood of information in a way that only makes sense when dealing with gifted individuals and explained some of the basics that I had acquired over the past 20 years:

 

The essence of how I work

Mindfulness and Kelee meditation and that ….

  • …you do not need to know much, you only need to know what’s  going on
  • …you should practice conscious awareness and switch off the autopilot to reduce suffering
  • …the only control we have is self control
  • …we concern ourselves too much with the business of others and lose focus as a result
  • …we often do things out of fear and not out of love
  • which is why we find it so difficult to enjoy life and be happy despite our material prosperity.

Jonathan listened attentively and carefully made notes. He is an extremely action-oriented person. In the exercises I gave him, he was also immediately able to switch from thinking to feeling and back, truly remarkable! On the face of it he made a positive and deep experience. How I love it when what I have to give falls on fertile ground. Just wow!

We continued our conversation over dinner. In addition to our professional lives, there were also similarities in our private lives. Our marriages did not survive the rhythm of two workaholics. The next day I had an appointment with the notary regarding the pension rights adjustment. I was actually looking for some distraction in a laid-back atmosphere, but a systematic analysis of human interaction seems indispensable when an engineer and a psychologist are having dinner.

 

Typical workaholic: relationships according to the performance principle

“Lara, what did you do to make up for your permanent absence from home?”
“I lugged crates of water. I went to the beverage store every Saturday and bought mineral water.”
“Ever heard of SodaStream?”

These engineers with their technical solutions… tsk…

“Well yes I have, Jonathan, but somehow I thought that if I carry a great number of crates it would make up for the fact that I had been away all week. A kind of performance principle: if I just make a tremendous effort, then everything will be fine. Just like back in school. For particularly good performance, our teacher awarded stars. And if we had ten stars, we got a pony sticker. I was a really good pupil and received many pony stickers. It’s amazing how you can bring such a concept into a marriage.”

Jonathan grinned. “I always went to the supermarket every Saturday at 8 in the morning to buy groceries for the entire week.”

“Well that’s only fair. After all, your wife was home alone with the kids all week while you were hanging out in 5-star hotels, living the high life of a consultant,” I mocked, quoting my ex-husband rather than Jonathan’s ex-wife, whom I had never even met.
“Exactly. A week’s worth of shopping for a family with three kids means two shopping carts. I always bought too much, cleaned the fridge beforehand, and made breakfast afterwards.”
“But why at 8 in the morning? Could you not sleep in? I mean, after a 70-hour week? With my water crates the time didn’t matter. They just had to be heavy. Which is why I always chose the glass bottles.”
“Sleeping in? Never! After breakfast, I took the kids to soccer practice, of course. I always took all children so that my wife could have a break. Secretly I had always hoped that she would thank me one day, show some appreciation. But somehow everything I did was taken for granted.”
“Jonathan…”
“Yes, Lara?”
“You also collected stars but never received a pony sticker. This desire for appreciation. Just like at work. Handling one project after another in the hope that one day you will have done a good enough job and that you will get appreciation from the top. Unbelievable, isn’t it? I had done everything I could to convince my husband that I was the best wife ever. It didn’t work. And guess what, Jonathan?”
“What, Lara?”
“I think I actually I tried to do his job too. How many women do you think are lining up in the beverage store on a Saturday?
“Counter-question: how many men will you find in the supermarket’s vegetable section on a Saturday at 8 a.m.?”

 

Wisdom is listening to your own advice

What had actually happened there? We didn’t get it. For 20 years.
Practice conscious awareness and switch off the autopilot? You’ve got to be kidding!
Self-control? I wish!
Whew! Wisdom is listening to your own advice.

Nevertheless, we still felt like the A-Team of the German consulting industry and continued our “study.” This is our Management Summary:

Men get stars for typical “women’s work” such as

  • cooking, ironing
  • and cleaning fridges.
  • However, hard physical labor or the multiple purchase or repair of fully automatic coffee makers also counts.

Women collect stars primarily through their ability to suffer, such as

  • going on a cruise together with their husbands although they always get seasick, or
  • giving their husbands a Sky subscription and then having to watch soccer six days a week.
  • But it is also possible to win mothers’ competitions, for example, if their homemade cake at the elementary school’s cake buffet is sold out first. A woman receives an additional star if she first returns from a business trip from Sao Paolo in the morning, then bakes the cake in question, and then works a shift at the cake buffet despite her jet lag. By the way, this enables the woman to place her own cake in such a way that it is guaranteed to sell quickly. We are not here for fun, after all.

 

Seven crates of water for 100 g of love

And all this so that our partners love and appreciate us, as if this could somehow be offset.
Seven crates of water for 100 grams of love. It’s a bit over, is that OK? Such madness! The later it got, the sillier we became.

“Jonathan, can the pony stickers actually be swapped, just like the Panini trading cards?”
“I bet they can, Lara.”
“I can trade water-crate lugging x 20. But I am missing something from the fully automatic coffee maker series!”

LOL! Laughter is the best medicine.

“Lara, how do we know what we get stars for?”
“There is an ISO standard for that from the Star Authority!”
“The STAR AUTHORITY???” Jonathan laughed out loud.

That was contagious and I had a laughing fit with tears streaming down my face.

“OK, Lara, and what happens if you have collected enough stars?”
“That never happens, Jonathan.”
“Why not, Lara?”
“They make the bucket bigger,” I replied, thinking I’d had a brainwave.
“The bucket? For collecting the stars?”
“Of course! It’s never enough. One project ends, a new project begins. And the next one is always a little bigger. And we think that at the end someone will show us appreciation for it all. But even if someone wanted to show us appreciation, we’d be unable to accept it because we already have to deal with the next project.”
“Lara?”
“Jonathan?”
“I had four buckets. One for my wife and one for each of my kids.”
“Jonathan, you’re crazy!”
“So are you, Lara, so are you!

 

Brilliant insights during light conversations

It was one of those wonderfully absurd conversations, which could have also taken place during dinner following a seminar before corona happened. You process the impressions you made throughout the day. Participants ask a few questions. Conversations flow easily and then brilliant insights emerge effortlessly. Not infrequently, what we talk about at the dinner table is more valuable than what we learn in the seminar room, because trust and a sense of community are created during these chats. And that is the basis for ensuring that organizations function. Without that they eventually wither at the core – that is my firm belief.

A few days later, Jonathan emailed me a list of thoughts he had taken away from the session with me. He is considering how he can incorporate them into his next process optimization project. After all, these often fail not because of inadequate process design but because of humans with their emotions. I am left with the image of the star collector and the Star Authority. They will also somehow find their way into one of my coaching or training sessions.

Last week I had my first workshop since March 2020. After a break of almost six months, I was finally working with a group of people again: face to face! It was not my most convincing professional event ever. A lot of masks – little proximity. The uncertainty when being close to others remains. And yet, the personal encounter was beneficial for the team. And the discussions at the table alone were worth it.

“What have you learned from corona?” The “corona time” is and was an extraordinary experience in the German boardrooms too. We read a lot about how well everyone has mastered this. However, there is little open communication about what has been lost or what we have missed out on. This has a lot to do with human encounters in companies. And we have to tackle this issue too!

 

People develop together with others

I currently find the following questions particularly relevant for the development of people and organizations:

  • In what way do we, as a responsible leadership team, pause and take a close look at what is REALLY going on?
  • How do we create safe spaces (safe, not protected, Jonathan!) where this is possible?
  • How do we re-establish (spontaneous) human contact in companies without the clock ticking?
  • How do we provide sensory experiences for teams remotely, such as celebrations or a delicious dinner with everyone?
  • How can we manage to feel and empathize with the emotions of others without unconsciously (using our autopilot) reacting to them?
  • How can we bring frustration, anger, and fears to the table and resolve them?
  • How can we once again share our joy with each other, laugh, be silly, talk nonsense, and develop creative ideas based on that?

As humans we need this to develop ourselves further.
Organizations need this to ensure healthy growth and to be efficient and successful.
This is what it is all about from my point of view: despite, because of, with or without corona!

P.S.: In a romantic Hollywood movie, Jonathan and I would now fall in love. There would be a happy ending, with a man and a woman standing hand in hand at the supermarket checkout. He wraps his arms around her and gives her a tender kiss, which she returns passionately. Adam Levine’s “Lost stars” is playing in the background. But this is not Hollywood, it’s Cologne. And they can’t kiss – because of the masks. So there will be no such movie scene. At least not with Jonathan and me. I do apologize to the romantically inclined readers of my blog. Damn corona!:-) 

photos by Niels Labruijère und Tristan Page