I’ve previously talked about how making assumptions can be dangerous in the “What are Assumptions Costing You?” blog post. Well here is an example of how a bad assumption can bite you…literally. Warning: If you easily get squeamish, you may want to skip reading this blog post.
The below happened to me a few weeks ago and here is what I’ve since learned.
Like many, I was heartbroken to see Ukrainians fleeing for their lives when Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb 24th, 2022. After two World Wars and many other localized wars, it’s clear to me no one truly wins, as there ends up being loss of life on both sides. And that’s just one of the short term impacts. There’s even more loss when the long term impacts of war are considered such as the effects of trauma, drain of resources, bitterness and resentment from acts of war, and more.
As change agents and leaders, it can feel like we’re powerless at times to do something about a situation. Maybe the situation is:
Russia invading Ukraine, climate change, school shootings in America, or some other large challenge the world or your country is facing
At work
Your child’s behavior
In your family
With your partner or a friend
Whatever the situation, what kind of thoughts does one have who is feeling powerless? And what can one person actually do?
As we come out of yet another wave of the pandemic, the movie “Groundhog Day” comes to mind. For those unfamiliar with the movie, Bill Murray’s character gets stuck in a time loop and has to live the same day over and over. For some, the pandemic is no longer a concern and they are living their lives like it no longer exists. For others, this recent wave has them feeling like Bill Murray’s character in the movie “Groundhog Day”, depressed, upset, and frustrated at reliving the same experience over and over.
As change agents and leaders, it can feel like we’re stuck in a time loop at times…sometimes it’s at work, sometimes it’s in our personal life, and sometimes it’s in both. So the question is, how much do you currently feel like you’re in the movie “Groundhog Day” (i.e. stuck in a time loop)? If you are currently in a time loop, how much do you want to break the cycle?
Read on for some example time loops at work and in one’s personal life as well as what it means if you’ve been trying to break the time loop and it’s not been working.
Happy New Year everyone!
A few weeks before the December holidays, I logged into my email marketing tool to find a pink banner at the top stating: “Use of the marketing email tool has been suspended because your spam reports rate exceeds our acceptable thresholds. Marketing email access will stay locked for this account and this decision can't be appealed further. You can still continue to use other tools in the application and send 1:1 emails”. To say I was shocked was an understatement as:
This meant I was left in a lurch with my business as suddenly I could no longer email my distribution list / community
No warning had been given I was approaching a threshold
I had been careful about who I was manually adding to my distribution list
I had an email sign-up confirmation set-up on my website’s newsletter template to avoid spam sign-ups
I was unaware there was no appeal process for free accounts before using this company’s product
I had been under the impression this brand was the Cadillac of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools which is why I hadn’t bothered to look too much into their customer support model before using it. Boy was that a lesson learned given my customer experience in December drove me straight to a competitor’s product.
As change agents / leaders we’re frequently improving a product or customer support model. Reflecting on the product or customer support you’re working on or responsible for, click below to see the short version of my customer experience, and ask yourself these questions to see if you’re driving customers to the competition.
Having just honored our veterans and with Thanksgiving coming up in the U.S., gratitude is top of mind. With work, family, the holidays, and the pandemic, one can easily get stressed out and feel overwhelmed. The question is, how often are you remembering to stop and be grateful?
Are you the kind of change agent / leader who is:
Never satisfied with what you have accomplished in your career and are always seeking the next position?
Always focused on what you don't have?
Always striving for more?
Taking the people in your life for granted?
Or are you the kind of change agent / leader who is often in gratitude and does the below? Why does being in gratitude matter?
Who knew two months later I’d be writing about a toilet again. On Sep 26th I went into my basement to find a sewage flood had occurred in the laundry room sometime that weekend. Unfortunately it had seeped into the carpeting the prior homeowners had installed in the adjacent basement living room. The same carpeting with asbestos tiles underneath I was planning to remediate down the road. So much for that plan.
As change agents we’re frequently making plans, whether it’s a plan for how to manage a change / continuous improvement in an organization, or a plan for something in our personal life. Undoubtedly something ends up going awry at some point with the plan.
Sometimes it’s a small interruption that simply ends up being a pebble along the way. And other times, it’s quite the storm that shows up and completely blows away the plan like my sewage flood. The question is, how well do you weather these storms? Read on to see what my sewage flood “storm" has entailed and reflect on how well would you have handled this storm?
Be Seen, Be Heard, Be Effective in Bringing about Change
