October 9, 2020, by Bert Cohen
'Never let a good crisis go to waste' ... Churchill said it years ago. And even in this day and age, amidst all the misery, we already see the glimmer of new ideas and developments, especially when it comes to the way we work. But what does this crisis mean on a more personal level, for your work and your future? Now is the time to look into that!
The world is on fire and things will never be the same in our work either! Working online from home more often is here to stay and has an impact on our way and degree of connection. Some products and services, companies and even entire sectors will disappear, and new ones will take their place. And that will certainly be accompanied by enormous social and economic unrest. Anyway, a real crisis!
But the word 'crisis', originally from Greek, literally means a crossroads: one turn leads to improvement and the other to the abyss. The Chinese character for crisis also consists of two parts: the left part means danger, and the right stands for opportunities and possibilities. So a crisis situation always has two sides: 'the bad and the good'.
The good thing about virtually every crisis (so probably this one too) is that it confronts us in an amplified way with what was already wrong before. But then it just wasn't bad enough yet and the adjustment still seemed preventable; not anymore! As far as I am concerned, that is what it is all about in this day and age. To change what was no longer adequate - but was still tolerated - into what really works. And I believe that whoever does that best today will be the winner of tomorrow!
And I don't just mean in the market, compared to the competition, but also much more personally. In my practice as a 'career strategist' I exlperience every day what happens when people really start doing what fits them; then they start to 'fly' (maybe not a handy metaphor in this day and age, haha!).
But what is needed for that? In my experience, at least three things.
First, be aware of the above. Where you no longer see the current misery as an excuse for what is going wrong, but as the engine for what can be better. Without that awareness, all the compensating measures of our government at the economic level may be useful, but it does not lead to innovation at the personal level. At least that is what I hope to contribute to with this column.
Secondly, mental space. Despite being so busy averting the crisis, step out of it for a moment to think about and perhaps especially to feel what you really need. That is of course always difficult in the hectic pace of the working day; but this time of working from home also offers the physical space for this.
And thirdly trust. To really change something, courage is needed, and courage comes with trust. I had never been so sure of myself as when I chose to start something completely new on my own more than 5 years ago. I had the awareness and the space, I knew what I could do and what I wanted. And then I dared to do it too!
And if you cannot do all that? Then it goes as it normally goes in life. Then for the time being everything will remain nice and familiar for you and you will be confronted again and again with what is not working now, until you learn from it. In the great turmoil of this crisis maybe not so bad, but for you a missed opportunity, a 'waste'. In that sense, the title of this column - especially in this most severe and therefore best crisis in years - is perhaps more than a life lesson: a 'must'!
