By Shaun Ekert
During the pandemic and isolation, people across Canada became Jacks and Jills of all trades—plumbing, teaching, gardening, crafting—and in doing so they demonstrated a flexibility and agility we can take into our businesses. As Canada starts to open back up, it is time to take inventory—literally, sure, but mostly figuratively—and bring some of that energy to our processes and operations. Can we be more efficient? Can we carve time and space for all the things we never have time for, like marketing, social media, calling old sales leads, or implementing new tech, now that we have had three months to realize what is truly essential? If we have no other lesson, it is time to make a conscious decision to come away from the pandemic experience with some new ideas and plans, and with the agility, flexibility, and ingenuity to take action.
If people can bring ingenuity to the office and workplace, whether it is a non-profit or a private business, it will make the entire team more agile, up your business savvy, and result in greater personal authenticity.
Take efficiency, for instance. Prior to COVID-19, I was travelling one week, home the next, travelling again, home again. Now, travel will look different, and there is a more concerted effort to plan more efficiently. Moving forward, my travel days will be full and fewer in number. Likewise, people in general will cut down on hotel nights, take greater pleasure in being home, and look for ways to generally minimize risk. Tradeshows and conferences, of course, are some of the most efficient business travel out there because education, meetings, and networking can be packed into three or four high-density days.
Let’s also consider perspective. I have two sets of friends who don’t know each other personally. One spent the bulk of the pandemic working hard with no interruptions in pay. They have remained financially strong the entire time, but they have had to send the kids to the grandparents so have sacrificed an enormous amount of family time. In the other family, the parents were laid off. They spent the time canoeing, camping, and baking the iconic COVID-19 sourdough. They have spent time wondering how they will ever survive financially, but they have never been closer to their kids. The people in either family could easily wish themselves in each other’s shoes, but the moral of the story is that no matter what situation we find ourselves in, there are always aspects that are positive and some that could be a lot worse. Being agile and flexible means seeing both and pivoting to leverage the good.
How about gratitude? The week everything went crazy, I flew to the United States on a Sunday and all was well. On Monday, the news reported big concern for COVID-19, and by Wednesday I was having dinner in a bar and all the sports games were cancelled. Soon, everything was closed and we were all rushing home. In a matter of 72 hours, the entire world changed. Let’s remember to be grateful for what we have and never, ever take it for granted.
The world is changing so quickly. Geoge Lloyd’s tragic death, the resulting riots, murder hornets, the economic impact of global change—the takeaway has got to be that we must remain agile, open-minded, and ready for anything. We must hope for the best, plan for the worst, and be able to shift gears from innovation to marketing to elbow grease and design a new, efficient system for how we operate our lives and our businesses.
No matter what part of the cycle or lifestyle you are a part of, how you react to crisis will set up how you and everyone around you gets through this. We might vote for our leaders, but we can also act like leaders in our day-to-day lives to help society.
In the absence of capacity to meet, our TIAC board positions have been extended for another year. Our Innovators Group has been tasked with developing a series of webinars to help keep members informed and connected. Of course, cancelling the conference was a disappointing but necessary step, and we look forward to seeing everyone in Newfoundland in 2021.
In unprecedented times, keep in mind that humanity has been through more drastic and monumental things. As an association, this is a pause for a year, but it does not change the support, connection, or value of participation and staying in touch. It seems very short time ago things changed, and soon enough it will seem like a blip in history. ▪
