{"id":488,"date":"2021-02-17T14:14:03","date_gmt":"2021-02-17T14:14:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.illuminate.co.com\/?p=488"},"modified":"2021-07-27T10:42:15","modified_gmt":"2021-07-27T10:42:15","slug":"a-story-of-our-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.illuminate.co.com\/index.php\/2021\/02\/17\/a-story-of-our-times\/","title":{"rendered":"A Story of our Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row css_animation=”” row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”grid” angled_section=”no” text_align=”left” background_image_as_pattern=”without_pattern” z_index=””][vc_column width=”2\/3″ css=”.vc_custom_1566406304942{padding-right: 10% !important;}”][vc_column_text]The beginning of this story<\/strong> started late summer, 2020, a request came in from a client asking for support for their Senior Leadership Team with a series of short learning bites, entitled \u2018Time To\u2026..\u2019 .\u00a0 These sessions were to be no more than hour encompassing an expert view with some guided reflection.<\/p>\n

The next chapter of this story<\/strong> is about the topic I was asked to cover, which was focussed on, \u2018things I know now, I wish I\u2019d known then\u2019.\u00a0 The \u2018then\u2019 being part of the HR Leadership team at Andersen during the Enron scandal and then working through the transition and harmonisation period of joining Deloitte.\u00a0 On June 15, 2002,\u00a0Andersen\u00a0was convicted of obstruction of justice for shredding documents related to its audit of Enron, resulting in the Enron scandal. The Andersen brand derailed, and the firm imploded.\u00a0 It was an extremely distressing time for everyone.\u00a0 Thousands lost their employment, and many lost their sense of identity.\u00a0 It was a time of extreme change, emotional upset, and loss.<\/p>\n

When I was asked to run the \u2018Time to Prepare\u2019 session to help individuals prepare for the months ahead which included significant change, loss, and the threat of COVID-19 my thoughts turned to those times in Andersen and the things, I wished I\u2019d known then that I know now.\u00a0 Particularly these three:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. I wish I had been better emotionally prepared\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n
  2. I needed a different perspective on change<\/strong><\/li>\n
  3. I would have benefited from knowing my Values, <\/strong>so the days I went home\u00a0feeling like someone had\u00a0kicked me was about about working long hours or demanding deadlines – I was used to that. \u00a0It was something else.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I started the session by sharing an emotional resilience model which I often use in my coaching.\u00a0 Our emotions are always with us \u2013 there waiting in the background ready for a situation to stimulate them.\u00a0 If we understand and look after our emotional resilience reserves, we can better respond in situations where our emotions are stimulated.\u00a0 The Centre for Creative Leadership sees emotional resilience as important in leading through change and eliciting trust.<\/p>\n

    The constant in our lives <\/strong>is change, to survive these times as in other crises we need to adapt and change.\u00a0During my years of corporate life the general rule was, when going through a change programme (and there were many), keep people informed \u2013 so we bombarded people with information.\u00a0 Did this help? Somewhat. The missing element was focussing on how people feel about the change.<\/strong>\u00a0 In the time we had during the \u2018Time to Prepare\u2019 session we discussed and reflected on a quite different model for interpreting change, one that incorporates both the analytical and emotional side. It landed well.<\/p>\n

    The other day I listened to a webinar by Nipun Mehta, honoured by the Dalai Lama as an “unsung hero of compassion” and appointed by President Obama to a special council addressing poverty and inequality. \u00a0The most striking thing about him is his heart-warming approach to life.\u00a0 When asked for his thoughts on the Pandemic, he responded – \u2018Is this a war or a love story? Is this an emergency where you have to take action or is it about emergence where you have to trust in what will happen next?\u2019<\/strong>\u00a0 I thought about the many acts of compassion and human kindness that have arisen over the last year.\u00a0 And yes, we have had to act, but many good things have emerged out of the crisis and there will be more to come.\u00a0 He went on to say\u2026 \u2018Don\u2019t lose touch with emergence\u2026\u00a0 Don\u2019t get lost in the fear of emergency where we can become entrenched in fear.\u00a0 We need to find the good stories.\u2019<\/p>\n

    Self-care is important at this time – you can\u2019t pour from an empty cup.\u00a0 Find the good stories and re-tell them to and about your people.<\/p>\n

    We need to have compassion for\u00a0others\u00a0and ourselves and be open to what might emerge as ‘the\u00a0story’ \u00a0continues<\/i><\/h6>\n

    \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

    [\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/3″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”sidebar”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The beginning of this story started late summer, 2020, a request came in from a client asking for support for their Senior Leadership Team with a series of short learning bites, entitled \u2018Time To\u2026..\u2019 .\u00a0 These sessions were to be no more than hour encompassing an expert view with some guided reflection.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":494,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,11,3],"tags":[16,13],"class_list":["post-488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-coaching","category-resilience","category-wellbeing","tag-self-compassion","tag-wellbeing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.illuminate.co.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.illuminate.co.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.illuminate.co.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.illuminate.co.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.illuminate.co.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=488"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.illuminate.co.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":550,"href":"https:\/\/www.illuminate.co.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488\/revisions\/550"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.illuminate.co.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.illuminate.co.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.illuminate.co.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.illuminate.co.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}