In February, before the quarantines began, my brother (and GO-VA Founder) Matt Kesby and I had started conversations within GO-VA about mental health and about asking for help. There is no shame in asking for help.
One of the things we are doing differently this year is communicating at a much higher rate than we previously had, and communicating in a way that builds trust. We work with the FranklinCovey framework, as demonstrated in The Speed of Trust, and this has helped us to talk straight, confront reality, and clarify expectations with people.
Most importantly, listen first, and understand where they're at in their specific situations.
Sometimes, as leaders, we focus so much on what others are going through that we forget about self-care. We forget that the temporary spells of anxiety, worry, and fear happen to us as well. For me, the first 2 months were hard. I missed those unplanned interactions with the team in the hallways, and I missed our culture events. In our gratitude celebration last February, we had enjoyed a Hawaiian luau whilst being entertained by fire dancers. It was magical.
We didn’t know then that it would be our last in-person gratitude celebration for who knows how many months.
That’s OK, though.
Working in these new conditions has created other opportunities, like enjoying lunch with the family (instead of at our desks) and finding more time for personal transformation. For some, that will mean meditation, for others more exercise, and for some, better sleep. Mostly likely, a combination of tactics is what we’ll all need. We each can choose to figure out what works for us and to do that.
3. Even in the midst of lockdown, recognize and seize the opportunities to create.
Last year, we spoke about the idea of sending a nurse on a motorbike to team members who were sick at home, so we could drop off medicine and check on how they were doing. We couldn’t get it quite right. It just wasn't scalable.
This year, as soon as the borders between cities here in Cebu tightened, we heard that team members were finding it a challenge to bring their parents (especially senior citizens) to a clinic for a check-up.
Then over a 6-week period that began around Easter, the dev team (whilst working from home) designed and built a remote video support software (
Quicklook.to) so that business owners and their teams could see a site that they couldn’t get to fast enough.
We imagined that our clients, whether they provide IT support or property management or maintenance services, would want to be able to check out a situation or give quotes, using their customers’ camera phones.
And then we thought, why not take this software and provide telemedicine to our team members? Let's take it one step further, and offer telemedicine to their immediate families in their homes because we’re hearing these stories that people just can't go and see a doctor.
Our hope is that as we start to do this, and people hear about it, that others will offer the same as well, and that we can get more free medical care to others in the Philippines.
4. Embrace the challenge of bringing culture-building online.
Also whilst in lockdown, Matt (who lived in the office for the first 55 days) and the dev team have kept working on our productivity software DoThis.to.
Designed and built for globally distributed teams, DoThis.to helps business owners automate their onboarding processes and training so they can scale faster. Now, as virtual assistants, our team members had regularly used tools like Zoom and Skype for Business long before work-from-home became a necessity this year.
This year, though, as millions more made the leap to Zoom, Google Meet or Microsoft Teams, we noticed that online meetings would run into frequent challenges. Participants would trip over each other. People would say, “Pardon me? Can you repeat that, please?” almost as often as, “You’re on mute.”
So, the team built a huddle board feature on
DoThis.to where teams could more easily stay on track, foster accountability, and give encouragement.
A lot of cultural rituals that used to be done face-to-face, we’ve also adapted.
Since late March, most public gatherings have been prohibited. Now when we welcome new team members or celebrate a successful probation period, we gather on Zoom. And instead of gathering in the office for our monthly lunch, Values Awards, and the CEO presentation, we meet in a virtual conference space (AllIn.to) at virtual tables, with virtual whiteboards.
“Many CEOs at your level, they will find that (having tea with new team members or having lunch to celebrate a work anniversary) a waste of time,” Adrian observed. (He also very kindly said that our onboarding process was one of the best he had seen so far. Thank you, Adrian!)
In GO-VA, we don’t see these touch points as a waste of time at all.
We’ve just had to learn to do them differently.
5. Use your affirmations! “I'm not telling you it's going to be easy. I'm telling you it's going to be worth it.”
Adrian also asked: “Why do you have such a huge passion for building culture in the organization? And why do you think culture matters in strengthening your team?”
I think that when you tell another person that you believe in them, that’s the most beautiful gift you can give.
As human beings, we can be really hard on ourselves. Even in the midst of a pandemic the likes of which no one has seen in nearly a century, and for which no one has a playbook for guaranteed success.
We all spend so much time at work. (Maybe a little bit differently now, because most of us are working from home.) So, why not make work a remarkable experience?
Leading GO-VA continues to be an amazing journey. What’s it like? I liken it to building a plane as it takes off from the cliff, and you’re still building it while you're flying. I’m sure a lot of entrepreneurs have had those feelings, around constantly building as we’re growing.
However, it has also been a journey of blessings. The Cebuano culture is so incredibly kind and so incredibly talented. So whilst this year hasn't been easy, not by a long shot, it has also brought about a lot of lessons in how to achieve results. How to innovate. How to care for one another better.
We choose to focus on these blessings.
Yes, there is a better way to run your online huddles with your team. We’ve built a tool that can put you and your global team on the same page, literally, and we’d love to show you how it works! Link in the image above.
