Insights

Every sunrise represents a new hope

April 4, 2020
Every sunrise represents a new hope

Every sunrise represents a new hope!

I was in a brief Motivational Speaking session for a client’s Leadership team yesterday over Zoom.

This client is engaged in the business of IT Products and Services.

The session was scheduled in the backdrop of the business impact of COVID-19.

Challenging times

There is a sense of uncertainty and despondency in the business climate today. The lockdown from March has greatly impacted the last quarter of the Fiscal. The conversion of proposals into firm contracts has got affected. The cycle time for outstanding payments has grown longer and new contracts are on hold. Consequently, no one knows how things are going to turn out.

The Leadership team is holed up in their respective homes. At these times they are mulling over the actions in line with their strategy and future plans as and when the lockdown lifts.

In short supply – hope and optimism

My agenda was to lift their spirits. Appreciating their business reality, I had to inject the team with hope and optimism – please see my Quote #98 below:

I began the call by asking each one of them to summarize their current business context. As they took turns to speak, I could sense the same despondency and uncertainty.

I had to think of something to turn the mood to positive.

What will you tell your child?

I posed a question to this all-men team:

What if your child came up to you today and asked you, ‘Dad, is this life really worth living?’ How would you respond?

There was a long silence in the call.

And then, one by one, they began. The following is a gist of their responses:

– there is so much to look forward to in life.
– this is just a ‘Pause’ period. Life will soon bounce back.
– just as there are seasons, this too is a season, maybe a longer one. The spring will come back.
– this is not an earthquake situation in which even the infrastructure is flattened.
– when the world has emerged from worse situations like wars, why will the world not recover from this one?

As they spoke I could sense the overflowing hope and optimism. I could sense that they were fully committed to their child and that they had taken full responsibility to inject hope and optimism in the child.

I told them that, metaphorically, this ‘child’ is inside each one of them and is asking them a similar question. It is up to them to respond with all their hope and optimism.

Every sunrise represents a new hope

When I asked them how does this hope and optimism translate into their business context they had the following to say:

– we need to work with our loyal clients and see how their business scenario has changed and how we could support them.
– the landscape has changed and we may have to work smartly to identify new opportunities.
– in this situation, every client will be looking at ‘doing more with less’ – could we contribute to creating new efficiencies for them using IT?
– how about new businesses? For instance, would something change for schools that have now experienced ‘distance-learning’? Would it open more opportunities? What about content development for distance-learning platforms?
– it is important to know what the Business Leaders of the country and the world are thinking and seeing. We could spot opportunities for our business context from there.

A story of optimism

Towards the end, I narrated a popular story.

A CEO of a company that made shoes sent two of his salespeople to Africa to spot opportunities to begin operations there.

Both salespeople met the CEO separately upon their return.

The first one appeared disappointed. He said, ‘I don’t see any opportunities there. No one wears shoes.’

The second salesperson appeared buoyant and excited. He said, ‘We must begin our operations there immediately. No one wears shoes.’

The story summarized everything – it was all about perspectives.

In the end, I thought this Leadership team had gravitated towards hope and optimism…for now. The journey, of course, needs to continue.

A leadership team needs to lead in times of crises

It is easy to be hopeful during good times. However, it is during challenging times that a Leadership team’s character is tested. While we are seized of the reality, we need all the hope and optimism that we can gather.

And in these challenging times, I guess we will have to be more deliberate about it.

Need some more hope and optimism? Click here to watch my latest video on YouTube.

 

For one-on-one coaching, just reach out to me at [email protected]. Just to let you know, I continue to conduct coaching sessions via phone, Skype, Facetime, and Zoom. Let’s chat and rekindle hope in your context.

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