We can honestly say that no one has gone through the type of situation we are dealing with now. Yet we have all gone through a recession before, and not too long ago. One of the greatest experiences that I had coming out of that recession is watching my clients rebound fast (relatively). If you ask them, they may not have felt it was so fast. However, when I compared the rebound progress of many of my clients to others (in the same fields) that I was observing, my clients were significantly farther along in their recovery period than the others. They rebounded faster! There are many factors for this but one I like to believe is because they were doing the appropriate strategic work. Together we were focusing on having the Big Picture perspective discussions and thinking critically through multiple possibilities. We routinely talked through their Mindset perspectives and worked through their fears and head trash to keep them mentally focused. We also worked to keep a consistent focus on the opportunities and actually have the crucial Opportunity perspective discussions even when they were scared to death of losing their businesses, their homes, and yes even their families.
Over the next few days I’m going to share with you my thoughts for our situation today around each of the three crucial perspectives; Big Picture Perspective, Mindset Perspective; and Opportunity Perspective and offer you my suggestions on what you can be doing now to set yourself up for the fastest possible rebound when this Corona Virus pandemic winds down.
The Big Picture Perspective
Welcome to 2020 where the game has changed. I love the concept “When everything changes, change everything.”
What you thought 2020 was going to be like, based on the trajectory and momentum building from 2019…it’s not going that way anymore.
Yeah, we’re expecting and hoping that we’re just experiencing a delay. Like the world is on pause and then we’re going to hit the “Play” button and everything is going to pick up right where it left off. Yes, that would be awesome. But likely it’s not going to play out that way. One major reason is we’ve stagnated the economy. It’s stalled. There is going to be some necessary momentum recovery. No one has a crystal ball and can declare exactly what will happen specifically, but we can predict what will happen next, from the right perspective.
Everything operates in cycles, waves, phases. Those phases or cycles are always the same. There are no new phases. My understanding of this is part of the reason I can use my coaching and business skills in just about any field and be highly effective. It’s always the same cycles…different circumstances but the same cycles.
The Rising Tide effect. The saying is that “a rising tide lifts all ships.” When everything changes, like it is now, everyone changes! We all go together, and we will all go together back to the same phase in the process. It is very similar, if not the equivalent of a paradigm shift.
Basically stated, a paradigm shift is where the normal mode of operations changes. A paradigm is a set of “normal” behaviors that fuel or drive a culture. A recent example of a paradigm shift is the invention of the internet. Once the internet was established, the paradigm of information, communications, and commerce shifted. The “normal” pattern of behavior around all of those areas of our culture needed to be established newly. We went from a non-digital world to a digital world. At that point everything reset to the same phase of progress. Everyone started from scratch in the new paradigm and whomever had the advantage before the internet came about no longer had the advantage.
I’m not sure if we’re actually in a paradigm shift and I’m not sure we have gone far enough through this experience or have enough information to declare that yet, but we are certainly behaving in a very similar manner we definitely have a reset.
The whole world is on pause and then we’re going to hit start again. We’re not sure what the circumstances are going to be, what it’s going to look like, when it will happen, or even exactly how it is going to happen. However, we do know that it will happen and when it does this is what we need to be prepared for…
Momentum will have dropped drastically and potentially completely for some industries.
We will all be in the same phase of forward progress…Formulation Phase.
We will all be driving to choose our focus point and shift into Concentration Phase as fast as possible to build momentum rapidly.
Those of us who are most effectively executing the fundamentals of each phase will move forward and reap the largest benefits the quickest.
Doing the Right Thing at the Right Time
Okay, I know that’s a lot of conceptual theory…so here’s what you can do right now to take advantage of this Big Picture perspective and ensure that you are effectively maximizing the time you spend in each phase.
One of my key coaching philosophies is to do the right thing and do it at the right time. It always sounds so silly to me when I say it because it seems so simple and common sense obvious…but it certainly is not. I regularly see people, even people I’m coaching, getting lost focusing on doing the right thing but doing it at the wrong time. This is why I love sharing these phases. If we clearly identify what phase we are in and focus our efforts on doing what we’re supposed to do during that phase, we’ll quickly move out of that phase. Just like the social distancing…if we do it well right now. Simply put, keep distance so as to not spread the virus, we’ll be all done with this epidemic in a relatively short time.
We are all in the Formulation Phase right now. There are so many unknowns as to how this epidemic is going to play out that we just cannot effectively make a firm plan for what we’re going to do when it ends. We can however do what we’re supposed to be doing during the Formulation Phase.
Gather information
Talk the game
Brainstorm creatively
Over communicate with your team
Prepare to make a plan
I’m going to address each of these points a bit more in depth in the next two installments when I dive into to the Mindset Perspective and the Opportunity Perspective.
I do want to make one important point now though. Notice in step 5 I said, “prepare to make a plan” and not “make a plan.” Making a plan is definitely a part of the Formulation phase but not something we want to get stuck trying to do right now. We simply do not have enough information to make an effective strategic plan right now. Short term, yes. Like a plan for today, this week, and a little next week. That is about it at the moment. Right now, it’s all about preparing to make the plan. Gather the data, talk the game, brainstorm, over communicate, and prepare.
This is the right thing to do right now from a BIG Picture perspective if you are practicing doing the right thing at the right time. Do this part well and you will have a bigger picture perspective than most of your competitors. You’ll have a broader perspective, have addressed a wider range of thoughts and ideas, and you will be ready when the time is right to formulate a plan that takes into account the Big Picture perspective.
I believe very few entrepreneurs and business owners actually invest the time to go through this level of thinking and effective strategic planning. And the results have been clear to me as I witnessed first-hand the clients, I worked with through the Great Recession bounced back much faster than the majority of their competitive counterparts.
Stay tuned for the next 2 installments of Perspective Matters where I dive into the Mindset Perspective and the Opportunity Perspective (you definitely don’t want to miss this one) as it relates to us now and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sincerely,
Coach Troy
P.S. And as always, if you want or need to dive more deeply into any of these topics to help you gain the edge you need to drive your business to the next level reach out and get into one of our Excellence In Progress private one-on one consulting sessions. Get a Free 30-minute coaching consultations.